


The Adventure of the Hopping Vampire

by David Hines (hradzka)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-31
Updated: 2011-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-25 03:06:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hradzka/pseuds/David%20Hines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SOME OF OUR MORE IMAGINATIVE READERS INFORM US that the events of the past few days -- the grisly deaths, the tragic fire, the flying carriage that caused the egregious delays on the Metropolitan and District Railway -- are attributable to the fevered pursuit of a Chinese vampire, known in its native land as a jiang shi, by the adventuress detective Madame Vastra.  These readers, whose persistent letters are beginning to become tiresome, claim that this is but one of many times Madame Vastra's unravelling of a mystery has saved all of an unknowing London.</p><p>We advise these peculiar devotees that we have yet again sought an audience with Madame Vastra, who, as ever, politely declines comment on any of the wilder rumors in circulation, but wishes it known that any unusual cases requiring investigation may be brought to her attention care of this newspaper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Rheanna and Watersword for excellent betas.

Jenny had been working for Madame Vastra for more than two years, but it had taken only until the second client to realize that all of Madame's initial conferences would play out according to the same script.

"I have heard," said the nervous voice in the drawing room, "that you suffer from -- a misfortune."

Jenny rolled her eyes and rummaged for the teacups.

"All too true," came Madame's voice. She spoke sadly, because it was expected that she do so. "My condition is alarming, but I have it on the highest medical authority that, while but poorly understood to science, it is not contagious." Jenny mouthed the words along with her; it was impressive how little Madame's tone and timing varied.

"Oh," said the client. There was a faint accent to the voice. A foreigner, Jenny thought.

"The framed documents behind you will give clear testimony to that effect, if it is of any concern for you."

Those documents had been Jenny's own first clue that something was amiss. The first document had been a prominent doctor's testimonial that Madame Vastra's condition was entirely noncontagious. The second had been an even more prominent doctor's testimonial that Madame Vastra's appearance, while initially alarming, was rather romantic, really, when an attractive young parlormaid took the time to appreciate it properly. The third had been a letter from the Queen describing, in shocking detail, exactly how the nice detective could take Jenny's mind off her troubles, and convincingly explaining why Jenny should let the nice detective go about doing those very things.

The strangest part of Jenny's embarking on her new life had not been Madame's horns and scales and oh god her tongue, but that her mistress's first words on embracing her had been, "Bloody psychic paper."

The kettle was already whistling. Jenny warmed the teapot, dumped the water, and put the tea up to steep. With the kettle off the stove, she could hear Madame calling her. She covered the pot with a cozy and made her way to the drawing room, where an elegant screen separated Madame from the client. "Yes, ma'am?" she said to the screen.

"Our client wishes to ask your opinion," said Madame.

This had never happened. "Yes, ma'am," said Jenny. The client sat on the couch near the fireplace, not far from the screen shielding Madame. Behind the screen, Jenny knew, Madame would be lounging in her armchair, one arm resting on the weighted stand next to it that let her swivel a writing-desk into place when necessary for note-taking.

To Jenny's surprise, the client was a Chinese. She was elegantly dressed, and she was a handsome, strong-boned woman, but her hair was touched with gray. She must have been close on forty, Jenny thought. "What can I do for you, ma'am?" she said.

The Chinese woman said, "You have seen her face. Madame Vastra's."

Jenny blinked. "Yes, ma'am."

"Would I find it very terrible?"

"Ma'am?"

"My story is very queer. Bordering on madness. I am here because only your mistress might believe it. Yet if my story were to escape this house -- " The client broke off. Gathered her breath. "I fear I am half mad already," she said, her voice shaking. "I must look your mistress in the face and know if I may trust her. Yet I know not how much more terror my nerves can withstand." She looked at Jenny. "Look at me, and tell me. You can see I am a woman of means. I know the world, and I can pay her. But can I bear it?"

Jenny looked.

"Ma'am?" she said hesitantly to the screen.

"Tell her, Jenny," said Madame. Jenny didn't need to see Madame to know her mouth had curled into a narrow smile. "Tell me."

Jenny took a breath. "She hasn't got money, ma'am," she said. "Shoes've been cleaned, good shine, but there's old mud in deep at the edge of the sole, a good maid would've got that out and a woman with a poor maid would've complained and refused them. No scratches on the shoes, so it's not poor service, meaning she's doing for herself. 'Spect she didn't see the mud 'cause it's small and she squints like she's a bit shortsighted. Dress is in fashion, shoes are not, and the dress and shoes don't go together. She keeps her hands folded in her lap so's I can't see them, and the dress doesn't fit in the shoulders because her arms are strong. She works with her hands, laundry I'd guess, took the dress from there, if I looked I'd prob'ly see a fresh laundry-mark. She's poor but she's smart, she's got good English and she talks better than you'd hear in back of a laundry so I'd guess she can read. She'll tell you what she thinks you want to hear, because she's used to people not listening to her; 's'why she's lying, so you'll listen now. But she put on a dress that isn't hers and tried passing above her station. Takes some sand. So I think she can look at you, ma'am." Jenny paused and cleared her throat. "I'll just be back with the tea."

Jenny curtseyed and left the room. She could hear the shocked silence in her wake, and felt a pleasant warmth at the thought of Madame's smile.

"You use your parlormaid to shame me," said the client.

 "No. I use my parlormaid to invite you to consider: if she can see so easily through your lies, what chance have you when you lie to me?" Madame's voice softened again. "Now," she said, as Jenny, tray in hand, stepped back into the drawing room. "This time, the truth."

"My name is Wong Tung-Mei. I am a laundrywoman. My husband and his brothers and sister think me mad. The whites would think me a superstitious nothing. But I have seen a horror I cannot otherwise explain, and if what I fear is true, then all of London is in the greatest danger."

Jenny watched her face carefully, then turned to Madame and nodded.

"Hm," said Madame. "Mrs. Wong, you may look upon my face. The screen, Jenny."

Jenny set the tea-tray on the side table next to Mrs. Wong. She turned to the screen. It was ebony, with brass inlay. A mock Chinese design, now that Jenny thought of it. She lifted the screen. Folded it against the wall. Behind where the screen had stood, Madame sprawled comfortably in her chair. One clawed, scaly hand toyed gently with a long clay pipe. She never smoked it; Jenny had persuaded her into it, on the grounds that clients might feel more comfortable if the great detective were toying with something less intimidating than a knife. The clients didn't know that the end of the clay pipe was sharpened enough to drive through an eye, in a pinch.

Jenny heard no gasp, no scream, no intake of breath. She turned to see Mrs. Wong looking squarely at Madame. The client's face had not changed.

"Interesting," said Madame after a few moments. "Usually people say something."

"What I have seen is more terrible than you."

"Usually they don't say that."

Mrs. Wong's face was set in stone. "Then they have not seen a jiang shi."

Madame blinked. She turned to Jenny, who shook her head. "Never heard of 'em, ma'am."

"I'm disappointed," said Madame. "You're usually such a reliable guide to all things hu-- local."

"Not local, ma'am. Chinese."

"How different can they be from you? They don't even have third eyes." Jenny coughed. "I!" said Madame, too quickly. "I forget myself. Please do go on. What is a jiang shi?"

"It is a corpse that has returned to life, and preys upon the living."

"No!" said Jenny. "A Chinese vampire?! -- excuse me, ma'am."

"A vampire?" Madame's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Like 'Carmilla?'"

"Oi!" said Jenny sharply. "Let's hope not."

"Yes, yes, of course," said Madame, "terrible, that would be terrible, young lovely girl, seductress, evil incarnate, don't know what I was thinking." Jenny, who had known exactly what Madame was thinking, made a face where the client couldn't see her. Madame failed to look apologetic.

"No," said the client flatly. "The jiang shi is much worse. They do not move naturally. Their joints are stiff, hence the name -- it means, stiff corpse. The jiang shi does not walk like humans. It hops. It steals the qi from humans -- not the blood, but the very life force. They are terrifying predators, the worst of the human they once were. They do not see, but sense the currents of the air, and if one comes by you your only hope is to hold your breath until it has passed."

Madame said, "And you knew the human that it once was?" The client shook her head. "Then how did you discover that this person had become a jiang shi?"

"Her maidservant came to our laundry. She brought but one dress, with no request for urgency, as is usual in such cases. I noticed that she was pale and drawn, and she spoke but little. When I asked of her mistress, her face was as of one greatly afraid. This made me curious, so I followed as she left. A carriage awaited her, but no one was in it. Her mistress, veiled and shrouded, awaited her in a nearby alley. She pointed to another shop, I surmised a direction to make or collect some purchases. The maidservant returned with a package, and the mistress -- the mistress followed her to the carriage, and -- " the client swallowed. "-- the mistress was pale, and her joints were stiff, and she _hopped_."

"Is that all?"

"It was enough."

"She was not infirm, or --"

"A woman of means, afflicted, would not have alighted from her carriage," said Mrs. Wong. "No. She flaunted this. She jerked and wriggled in a foul way, and smiled hideously as I stared at her, and then she hopped to her carriage and entered it, laughing, at a bound, her pale-faced servant following after. No. She was not infirm. She was _obscene_."

Madam tapped the sharp stem of the pipe against her teeth. "What is the name of this woman, and where may we find her?"

"The servant is Kathleen. I do not know the jiang shi's name, or where she lives."

"Have you no clue to her identity?"

"I am wearing it."

Madam's eyes, half-closed, opened fully. "Her dress?" she said. "Brava, Mrs. Wong! Jenny will attend you. Have you cleaned it? No? Excellent! Pray borrow one of my dressing gowns, and have a cup of tea by the fire. I shall retire to the library, and thoroughly examine the clue you have so ably brought us."

* * *

The library table was large, and the jiang shi's dress fit neatly onto it. Madame bent low over the dress and sniffed, her tongue flicking rapidly over the material. "Ozone," she said. "Interesting."

"What's that, ma'am?"

"Oxygen allotrope. O-three, molecule composed of three oxygen atoms." Madame glanced up at Jenny's uncomprehending face. "You smell it after thunderstorms? Can be formed from the air as a result of electrical discharge?" Jenny shrugged, and Madame sighed. "Ought to read up on your chemistry, my dear."

"Find me more hours in the day, ma'am."

"And this is interesting. Look, in the hem of the dress." Madame pulled something free, squinted at it, and popped it into her mouth. She rolled it around for a few moments, then spat. "Tektites," she said. "Tektites and iron ore. Our putative jiang shi's been walking around somewhere there are a lot of meteorites. Electrical discharge and meteorites; that's a curious combination."

"Alien, ma'am?"

"Or she's a woman with an unfortunate affliction who's fond of meteorites." Madame frowned. "I need more information. We need to find out who this woman is." She glanced up at Jenny. "Can you work through the servants?"

"It'll take some doing, ma'am," said Jenny. "Got a description of the girl while I was attending Mrs. Wong, but there's a lot of servants in London and a lot of them are named Kathleen."

"Well, it's that or have Parker keep watch until the maidservant comes back to the laundry. If she does. And that would never do; I might need him to drive us somewhere if another case arises."

The bell at the rear of the house jingled. "I might have a way, ma'am," said Jenny. "Excuse me."

"Very good. Come to the drawing room when you've finished."

Jenny left Madame sniffing over the dress again and made her way down the back stairs. The young man at the tradesman's door was who she'd expected to see, given the day. "Wilmer," she said. "How are you?"

"Just fine, Jenny. Just fine." Wilmer's cheerful grin flickered halfway to a leer before flickering back. "An' you're just a bit of scrumptious today, you know that?"

"Get on with you," Jenny said. "You don't care for me no more than for your other girls."

Wilmer tugged his cap from his head, revealing a shock of curled black hair, and clasped the cap to his bosom, trying to look for all the world like a maligned soul rather than the second-greatest danger to the virtue of servant girls in all of London. "''pon my soul, Jenny," he said, "I don't care for none of 'em so much as you."

"That's not what I heard," Jenny said. "You were out with that little Irish girl, I heard about that!"

"What little Irish girl?"

"Kathleen. Don't tell me you don't know any Kathleen."

Wilmer twisted his cap in his broad fingers. "Ah, well, I know one or two, but --"

"Young and short, with red hair and freckles. Has a scar on her cheek, just here." Jenny pointed.

"Lady Carrington's Kathleen? I never!"

"You did, too! In the park --"

"'Like she'd leave 'er ladyship's side for even a minute, even on a half-day off? Unseemly devotion, it were. T'ain't natural. Always shut up in that great white house in Westminster."

"So you tried, then?"

"Well," said Wilmer, "can't rightly blame a fella for that." His eye twinkled, and despite herself Jenny smiled back. He was a shameless seducer, but she gave him this much: unlike a lot of them, he never promised more than a good time, and from the gossip she'd heard he more than delivered. She grinned at him, and waited for him to realize he'd been had. In her experience, it would take only a moment or two.

Wilmer pursed his lips as suspicion crept into his eyes. "You know, darlin'," he said, "if you want to know who some serving-girl works for, you can just ask me."

"Nah," said Jenny. "Where's the fun in that?" He scowled theatrically, so she pressed a coin into his hand and then, on a whim, pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. "Don't be gettin' ideas," she said as he brightened. "There's no more where that came from, so don't go expectin' any."

"A man ever lives in hope, my dear. Does that mean you've nothin' needs sharpening?"

They did. Jenny reached into the corner, found Madame's spare sword, and tossed it to him. "Good and sharp, now," she said. "Don't scuff the blade, mind."

Wilmer took the sword and squinted at it. "What's this on it, then, blood?"

"It's not human," said Jenny. It was Rutan, actually.

"Well, that's a comfort. I'm sure I don't know what you and Madame Vastra get up to."

Jenny grinned. "No," she said, "I'm sure you don't."

Madame was ensconced in her armchair by the time Jenny returned to the drawing room with the freshly-sharpened sword in hand. Mrs. Wong, wearing one of Madame's obnoxiously expensive dressing gowns, sat uncomfortably before the fire, a delicate teacup in one roughened hand.

"Have you anything for me?" said Madame.

"Yes, ma'am. Kathleen works in Westminster, for Lady Carrington. Big white house, shouldn't be hard to find."

"If this is your parlormaid," said Mrs. Wong, "you must be a very great detective."

Madame smiled. "For this, I don't need to be," she said. "Lady Carrington's one of the greatest socialites in London. I don't know her, but I know where she lives."

"But can you slay a jiang shi?" said Mrs. Wong.

"Sword, ma'am," said Jenny, and tossed it.

In one swift, whirling motion, Madame rose, snatched the sword from the air, drew it from its scabbard, and neatly bisected the candles on the far table, and along with them the topmost wax apple in the fruit bowl.

Madame said, "If it must needs be slain, we shall slay it."

* * *

The Carrington house was large, larger by far than Madame's own; but Jenny barely spared it a glance, for she was focused on the walk and on her feet. Twenty-three paces, she counted. Mark. Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six…

When she was done, she turned right at the next street and made her way through a narrow alley and back to the nearby abandoned house Madame had selected for a base of operations. The garden was a touch overgrown, but the house itself was in fine shape, and even the sheets covering the furniture were as fine as any Jenny had ever seen. The floor was covered with a light dust, and Madame's footprints were clear in it, as were Jenny's own.

Jenny took the narrow stair down to the cellar, where Madame squatted next to the sewer opening. "Three hundred of my paces north gets you to the house, ma'am," she said as she picked her way through the bric-a-brac. "Twenty-three more is the front door, another thirty to the far corner. I didn't see anyone to play who-is-what on the way, sorry. What do you expect to see underneath?"

"Don't know, dear. Might not see anything." Madame draped her cloak over a dusty chair and unfastened her sword belt. "Might find a nest of very nasty somethings." She unfurled the roll of canvas next to her across the floor, and pulled out the waders that had been wrapped inside. "So play who-is-what here. The house we are in is abandoned; where are the owners?"

Jenny frowned. She'd never played who-is-what with a house before. "What do I look for, ma'am?"

"How did you peg Mrs. Wong as a laundrywoman?"

"Servant's eye, ma'am."

"So look as a servant does. Furniture's in place upstairs, covered with sheets, but some whole rooms are empty, one carpet clearly removed, light patches on wallpaper show where pictures are missing, but other pictures remain. Why would someone ask you to do that?"

"Going abroad for a year?"

"Would they take the furniture?"

"No. Too heavy, too much trouble -- " Jenny bit her lip. "Somebody died."

"Who?"

"Somebody older, from the decor. Somebody who lived alone, other family members independently established or married off -- all daughters? Address is good, house is big, if there were a son he and his family would remain here, so there wasn't --" Jenny shook her head in confusion. "Or they're dead, or they didn't want to stay. Why wouldn't they want to stay?"

"Everything that was taken has been taken from the rooms that show a feminine influence, with the exception of the pictures. No samplers or cross-stitch remain; those have all been taken, as have the family portraits that show the wife. The portraits and photographs that remain show children with only the father or a man alone. No one wanted those. Why? What is the human context?"

Ah. "His children hated him, but loved their mother." It was a disconcerting thought, to see a family's pain so clearly laid out in the arrangement of their rooms. "You're a great detective, ma'am."

"So are you," said Madame, "when you let yourself be."

It was not a wonder that Madame said such things, not any more. It was that she said them to Jenny as if they were not wonders, as if she expected that people had been saying them to Jenny for all of Jenny's life before.

Jenny regretted her maid's uniform, her lack of trousers. "I should be going with you."

Madame shook her head. "I need you to do the things I can't. Get into the house. Play who-is-what, the way I've taught you. Talk to Kathleen. See her mistress, if you can. If it's safe."

"Yes, ma'am." The straps on the waders were not quite right, so Jenny adjusted them. Her mother had always said that there was hard work in being a servant, but a comfort, too, in knowing one's place, in knowing what one made possible. Jenny had never felt that before Madame. Now she knew it every day. If her mother could see her, Jenny thought, she would be proud.

She looked up to Madame's face and felt herself blushing. She should not be so enraptured, she thought; it would not do; there was no time for it. "Sorry, ma'am," Jenny said, handing Madame the shorter sword. "I know there's a time and a place."

Madame said, "Yes, there is," and kissed her.

The kiss was long and loving, and Madame's mouth was cool. Her claws slid gently over the back of Jenny's neck, and Jenny made a mental note to give Madame a manicure when they got home; her claws were just on the edge of scratching.

"Good luck, ma'am," Jenny managed to dazedly mumble as Madame stepped away.

"And to you." Madame swung herself into place over the opening, then dropped into the darkness with a low splash.

Jenny caught her breath for a few moments, then made her way back to the street and walked boldly toward the house.

She counted her steps as she moved, and imagined Madame, but scant feet below her, counting paces, short steps to compensate for Jenny's shorter legs. It was a comfort to think that Madame was not so very far away.

The Carrington house itself was very large. Jenny knew little of Lord Carrington, though if Madame's clippings of the society columns were any indication he was perpetually abroad with the army. Lady Carrington, Madame had explained, was well-known for knowing people and for being known, which to Jenny made little sense. Given Lady Carrington's sociability and Lord Carrington's fame, however, the house was not what she had expected. It was grand, yes; but the walk was unswept, the beds unweeded. Jenny saw no movement in the windows, which were streaked and lacked the expected sparkle.

Jenny made her way to the servants' entrance and knocked softly. For almost a minute, nothing happened. Then Jenny heard a soft rustle, and glimpsed a flicker of movement at the nearby window. She hoped it had been Kathleen, rather than the alternative. It was, she supposed, technically possible that Mrs. Wong had been mistaken. But Mrs. Wong had been sober, and serious, and terrified.

The door opened a few inches, and a young woman peeked out. She was much shorter than Madame, but still an inch or two taller than Jenny. A few tufts of red hair had escaped her cap, and her skin was fair and freckled. Beneath the freckles was an unhealthy pallor. Her eyes were shrouded in dark circles, and a small scar stood high on her cheek. "Yes?" she said. Her voice was thick, as if she had just awoken, or had yet to speak that day.

"Hullo," said Jenny cheerfully. "I'm seeking a position, and -- "

"We've no positions," said Kathleen, and closed the door.

Jenny stuck a foot in the door before it could fully shut. "But it looks like you could do with some help about the place," said Jenny. "The walk's not been swept, nor the windows done, and -- " She angled her neck, trying to peer around the door. "Is anyone else in there?"

Kathleen froze. Her lips opened, but no sound came out.

Jenny said, "Are you quite all right, love?"

"I want to shut the door," said Kathleen. Her voice was still rough, but small now, like a child's. "Let me shut the door."

"May I still talk to you, if you shut the door?" said Jenny. "I'll take my foot out, I promise, but you must stay there and let me talk to you for a moment. Will you do that?" Slowly, Kathleen nodded. She opened the door enough for Jenny to withdraw her foot. Jenny glimpsed the kitchen behind Kathleen: neat, organized, everything in its place. Not everything had gotten away from her.

The door closed, and locked. Jenny leaned against it and pressed her face to the wood. "When I was a little girl," she said, "and things were bad, my mum would make me a cup of tea. Not so often, the mistress wouldn't allow that, but when I needed it and when she could, she would make me a cup of tea." Jenny smiled at the memory. "Do you have anyone to do that for you?" No answer came. "You've had so much to do, and such a lot to take care of," Jenny said urgently. "Just -- just let it go, only for a little while. Let me come in and take care of you. Don't you want someone to take care of you?"

A soft sob from the other side of the door.

"I won't stay. I'll make you a cup of tea and then I'll go. Only let me do that for you, my dear. Please."

The door unlocked and slowly swung open. Jenny stepped inside. "Now," she said, "just show me where the things are, and --" Kathleen sobbed again. Jenny reached forward and took her hands. "Oh, my lamb," she said. "Oh, my poor lamb. Come on, come here and sit down, that's a girl, poor girl, poor lamb."

They sat at the table. Kathleen stared at the wood. When her cup of tea went untouched, Jenny sat across from the girl and kept hold of her hands, which were trembling. "It's very quiet," said Jenny. "Isn't there anyone else here?"

Kathleen said, "My mistress is upstairs."

"Your mistress," said Jenny. "Tell me, is she -- " _monstrous?_ " -- is she quite all right, Kathleen?"

Kathleen's head jerked up. "How do you know my name?"

"I know a lot of things," said Jenny. "Don't worry. I'm here to help you."

Kathleen went very pale. She was trembling, and when Kathleen rose and turned away Jenny saw that there were three scratches on the nape of Kathleen's neck. They were long, and parallel, and they looked very much like the leavings of fingernails.

It wasn't like practicing deduction on Mrs. Wong, or any of the times Madame had made Jenny play at who-is-what in a crowd. The things she'd seen hadn't been interpreted one-by-one, but now they added up in a sudden flash: _that happens sometimes when Madame kisses me_ and _Wilmer said she's so devoted it isn't natural_ and _he'd think me and Madame wasn't natural_ and then _sharp-nailed Lady Carrington is kissing her_ and _but it's too much house for one servant_ and _the walk isn't swept_ and quickly turned those into _the other servants have deserted, but not her, she hasn't, because she loves Lady Carrington and she won't ever_ , and the _jiang shi eats the life force_ and finally _oh dear God she's **letting her feed --**_

A sound came from upstairs. It was not quite a thud. It was more of a flop-scrape, of something lurching forward, then shuffling to regain its balance. A wriggle and hop.

Jenny leapt to her feet and grasped Kathleen's hand. "She's a monster," she said. " _Run._ "

Jenny got only two steps before she was jerked to a halt. Kathleen stood, unmoving, rooted to her spot in the kitchen floor. Her head moved side to side, side to side, in a little arc: no, no, no. "Kathleen," said Jenny desperately, "come along. I promise, I'll explain everything, but right now --"

"It's not wrong," Kathleen snapped. "I love her and she needs me and it's not wrong --"

"That's not what I meant --"

"It's not wrong!"

Kathleen flung Jenny's hand down like a filthy thing. Her eyes were wild, and her cheeks streaked with tears. Her breath came in short, shuddering gasps, and something in it brought back to Jenny, unbidden, the moment she had first stepped trembling around the screen to face Madame. Jenny would never forget that rush of exhilaration: she had felt terror, and wonder, and hope, such hope.

"You always loved her," said Jenny. "Didn't you." The stark horror of it unfolded before her. "And now she says she loves you back."

"It's not wrong," whispered Kathleen fervently. She sounded as if she were praying. " _It's not wrong._ "

"No," said Jenny. She took up Kathleen's hand again, and squeezed. "It's not wrong." It could have been me, once, she thought, it could have been me. But no; Jenny had not loved Madame from afar, while Kathleen had been so near to her beloved with no hope. It must have been so much worse. "But she is wrong, Kathleen. She's gone very wrong, and I don't know if I can help her, but I know I can help you, but only if we leave right now, do you understand?"

The sound, again. Closer. Closer. Flop-scrape, flop-scrape, coming down the stairs. Kathleen did not move from her spot. Jenny squeezed her hand again. "I'll come back for you," she said, and turned to run away.

Kathleen didn't let go.

"Kathleen," Jenny said urgently, "if you want to stay I'll let you, but you have to let me go right now -- "

Flop-scrape, flop-scrape.

"No one must know," Kathleen whispered. "Milady said. 'No one must know, Kathleen.' That's what she said."

"Kathleen -- "

"No one must know. She said. She watches me, I said I won't, but she watches me -- " Kathleen's voice broke, and broke again. "She didn't mean to -- she's gotten better -- she was so _hungry_ \--"

"Kathleen," Jenny said, "did the other servants run away?"

Kathleen said nothing, but sobbed, and Jenny thought, _oh God_.

Jenny yanked. Nothing. The girl's grip was like iron. _No sword. Can't take her hand._ Jenny's glance flashed over to the table, where a paring knife lay. _I could take her eyes._ The knife was within reach. Before the thought was done, it was in her hand. Jenny turned back to Kathleen, saw the panicked face, saw in a sudden flash how it would look after she -- no, Jenny thought, no, no, _no._ She leaned forward and kissed the girl instead, kissed her as warmly as she could, Madame would understand. "I'm like you," she hissed as their lips parted. "Don't you understand, you're not wrong, you're in danger, I'm like you, I'm like you, _please --_ "

Flop-scrape. Flop-scrape. Closer, closer, it was right outside the kitchen door --

Kathleen let go.

There was no time to leave; Jenny spun behind the kitchen door, made herself as small as possible, and, remembering Mrs. Wong's words, took her deepest breath, and held it.

The door opened.

With a flop-scrape, flop-scrape, the jiang shi dragged itself into the kitchen. Hiding behind the door, Jenny could only glimpse a little of it through the crack. She saw a bit of a dress, trailing behind, as the jiang shi passed, and then nothing more, for the creature in Lady Carrington's body had gone by the crack, and was separated from Jenny only by two inches of fine wood. Jenny hid behind the opened door, and held her breath, and waited.

Kathleen said, "Milady."

"Kathleen," said a voice like death and stone and a loveless heart, "to whom were you talking?"

"Just to myself, milady."

"Yourself."

"Yes, milady."

Another flop-scrape. Then another. Fingers appeared, curled round the edge of the door. They were long and thin, and the nails were very pointed.

The jiang shi came further into the kitchen, and turned, and as it did it shut the kitchen door, and Jenny saw.

The jiang shi was pale and horrid, with mottled skin like a gray porridge, and little streaks of green and blue to marble the surface. Its grin was fixed in a terrible rictus, and its head lolled a little to one side; when it turned to face something, it didn't rotate its head; it twisted, until the head moved of its own accord, and then let the momentum flop the head sickeningly into place. Its arms were raised in front but not straight out; the elbows were bent, but frozen in position, as if the hands were reaching out for something, or straining against the lid of a coffin. Its legs were worse. They were twisted toward the inside, so the jiang shi was horribly pigeon-toed; the hips were stiff, as were the knees, so that small or graceful movements were impossible. It was not the confinement of a palsy. The jiang shi's every motion was forced and brutal, as if for all its clumsiness it overcame its reduced movement with convulsions of sheer strength.

The jiang shi's eyes were filmed over and useless, and they rolled as their gaze fixed on Jenny.

Jenny didn't move. Didn't breathe.

The jiang shi held its position for a moment, and then turned away.

"Kathleen," said the jiang shi, "I require you."

Kathleen bit her lip. "Again, milady?"

"Not so much, and not for long. And when I've done, I'll kiss and caress you, just as I always do. You do like that, don't you? You went without for so long."

"Yes, milady."

The jiang shi's posture softened. Its voice, cold and grating, dropped, softened, until it was like the rustle of dead leaves. "I know that I have changed from what I was," the jiang shi said, "and more each day." A sharp-nailed finger clumsily traced Kathleen's cheek. "Can you truly still love me?"

"I love you, milady," said Kathleen softly, catching the jiang shi's hand in hers. "I've always loved you, and I'll always love you. I'm yours, always and only."

"Then look with your eyes, as you love me, and tell me," the jiang shi said. "Is there truly no one here?"

Kathleen lifted her head and stared straight at Jenny, then turned her gaze back to what had been her mistress. "No one, milady."

Jenny closed her eyes as Kathleen lovingly kissed the twisted mouth, and closed her ears to the jiang shi's murmured endearments as the two exited the room, Kathleen supporting as the jiang shi hopped and wriggled, hopped and wriggled. The door closed behind them; only then did Jenny slowly let her stale breath go and take another.

Jenny, breathing as little and as shallowly as she dared, let them go upstairs and waited several minutes before she slipped away, and when she was outside, she ran.

* * *

Jenny burst through the door of the abandoned house and slammed it behind her.

She leaned heavily against the door and gasped for breath, then peered through the leaded glass windows beside the doorframe as if the jiang shi might be hopping after her. No unusual movement was visible on the street outside. A few of the people she had brushed past in her flight looked in evident curiosity at the house to which she had run, but that was all.

Jenny closed her eyes and rested her head against the door. She was still breathing fast. She didn't know why Kathleen hadn't listened to her. Jenny had lost track, by now, of the number of times Madame had grasped her hand and yelled, "Run!" That was how things were done, Madame had said once, with the air of one with long experience in these matters. It was still unusual for Jenny to try doing it herself, but as far as Jenny was concerned, when someone grabbed your hand and yelled, "Run!" you ran.

Perhaps there was some knack to getting people to listen to you when you did it. She would have to ask Madame about it.

Madame must still have been inside the sewer. There was no sound inside the abandoned house. No one had responded to Jenny's entrance, or the slamming of the door. No one; no one at all.

Jenny wished she had her sword.

She crept as cautiously as she dared toward the cellar. She would have held her breath, had she been able, but her lungs were still laboring, and her heart pounding. Her own pulse resounded in her ears as she cautiously passed the door and made her way down the staircase. The lanterns she and Madame had left were still lit. The hole to the sewer was open. There was no movement, no sound. Her sword, she saw, was on the other side of the hole, by the chair holding Madame's cloak; another chair was on Jenny's side of the hole, against the wall. Everything was as it had been left.

Jenny whispered, "Ma'am?"

No response came from the cellar, or from the hole. Jenny picked up the lantern. Slowly, she moved toward the hole, the lantern high, so its flickering light crept down the hole's dark edges. "Ma'am?" she said.

The sound of splashing sounded from within the hole. Jenny moved closer toward the edge, looked down. Something moved --

Two green, scaled hands grasped the edge of the hole a split-second before Madame's head rose into view. "Hello, dear," she said, dragging herself onto the flagstones. "All right?"

"Jiang shi," said Jenny. "Lady Carrington. She is." The words tumbled awkwardly past her lips. "I don't know what that is really, but she looks horrible, she looks dead, I think she is, ma'am, and now I'm babbling, sorry. Blind, can't see, but she senses the air like Mrs. Wong said, and I think she's strong."

Madame carefully took the lantern from Jenny's shaking fingers. "Dead? Was there a smell?"

"No, ma'am. Skin looked bad -- gray and marbled, but no smell, she's off but not rotting. She killed the other servants, Kathleen said, ate their life 'cause she was so hungry. Kathleen's the only one left. Kathleen's in love with her ladyship; the jiang shi's using that. Feeding, on Kathleen." Jenny blinked at Madame, whose skirt was stained and torn. The scabbards at Madame's waist were empty. "Where're your swords?"

Madame said, "Would you care to guess what I found in the sewers?"

Jenny swallowed. She took a breath, to steady herself, and then said, very fast, "The reanimated corpses of Lady Carrington's dead servants, ma'am."

"Excellent!" said Madame. Her beaming smile flashed, then vanished. "But worryingly specific."

Jenny pointed past Madame's left shoulder.

The third of the revenants was just hauling itself over the edge of the pit. Behind it, Jenny could see a tangle of limbs; more undead were standing on each other, climbing each other's bodies, to reach the cellar. The heavy iron grate to the sewer lay where Jenny and Madame had left it, propped up against a wall. As the third revenant straightened up to stand beside the two that had preceded it, Jenny saw bright lengths of steel protruding from its belly.

"Oh look," said Madame happily. "There are my swords."

The revenants began to shuffle forward.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SOME OF OUR MORE IMAGINATIVE READERS INFORM US that the events of the past few days -- the grisly deaths, the tragic fire, the flying carriage that caused the egregious delays on the Metropolitan and District Railway -- are attributable to the fevered pursuit of a Chinese vampire, known in its native land as a jiang shi, by the adventuress detective Madame Vastra. These readers, whose persistent letters are beginning to become tiresome, claim that this is but one of many times Madame Vastra's unravelling of a mystery has saved all of an unknowing London.
> 
> We advise these peculiar devotees that we have yet again sought an audience with Madame Vastra, who, as ever, politely declines comment on any of the wilder rumors in circulation, but wishes it known that any unusual cases requiring investigation may be brought to her attention care of this newspaper.

There was something to be said, Jenny had always thought, for the quiet life of the domestic servant.

Not that she would know; most domestic servants rarely found themselves shoulder to shoulder with their employer to face a horde of undead rising from the sewers.

The revenants seemed unending. Behind the ones that had already risen from the sewer or were struggling to haul themselves onto the flagstones of the cellar, more strived to climb. Jenny saw one rise briefly and then fall back as yet another grasped at its shoulder and fought to rise in turn. How many of them are in there? she wondered, and then shook her head as her brain rapidly attempted to furnish an estimate based on Lady Carrington's home size, estimated finances, and social position. In a moment, the revenants would be upon them. 

"Jenny!" said Madame. "Grate!"

The grate sealing off the entrance to the sewers was where they'd left it: propped up against the wall on the other side of the hole, past the revenants. "I see it," Jenny said.

Madame stepped forward. One arm still held the lantern; the other was raised to a fighting posture. "My swords, your sword, clearance, grate. Ready?"

"Ready."

"Go!" Madame said, and charged.

Madame liked to stick to fists, feet, venom, and swords when she fought. Jenny believed in using everything she could, so her first move was left, toward the wall and the empty chair. She swept the chair up in one hand, spun, and smashed it crosswise into the midsection of the leftmost revenant, a short woman with a cap and uniform very much like Jenny's own. The revenant stumbled backward and fell, tripping over a new revenant making its way out of the hole. Jenny was left holding two splintered stumps of wood; she stepped forward and fell to a knee, driving one of the stumps through the fallen revenant's open mouth.

She risked a quick glance up: Madame had beaten the rightmost of her opponents back, but it seemed not to be responding to the Venusian aikido techniques that usually served Madame in such good stead. Then Madame was blocked from view, as the second revenant, the one with Madame's swords through its gut, turned on Jenny and reached for her.

Jenny smashed it in the face with her other stump of chair leg. The revenant seemed barely to notice. She scrambled backward, but the revenant, though clumsy, was faster. It lurched towards her just as the other revenant, the one with a chair leg in its mouth, turned onto its side and grasped at Jenny's foot.

"Jenny!" called Madame. Her mouth opened, gaped wide.

"Ma'am," said Jenny, "remember --" Madam's tongue flashed across the room. It coiled around the sword-pierced revenant's ankle, and yanked, and just as quickly flashed back. The revenant fell as Madame, retching, recoiled into a small shelf, sending an array of jars spilling across the cellar floor. "-- what they've been wading in!"

The revenant maid clutched at Jenny's shoulder as she rose. Jenny spun, shoved it away, and as it came back in she swung at the chair leg in its mouth with the one she still held. The force drove the splintered chair leg in the mouth through the back of the revenant's neck. The revenant dropped like a puppet that had had its strings cut, but the one with Madame's sword through it was rising to its feet, and more were coming through the hole in the floor. There were six in the cellar, now. On the other side of the hole, Madame choked and spat, grasping frantically with one arm. A small jar rolled nearby, and Madame glanced at it, then opened the lid and swilled the contents, swishing them about in her mouth to clear the filth away.

The revenant closed on her, then reached out. Before Jenny could cry a warning, Madame brought the lantern in front of her lips, puffed her cheeks, and blew --

 _Paraffin_ , thought Jenny as the ball of flame engulfed the revenant. The flames lit every corner of the dark cellar. Madame stepped back, gargling with and then spitting out the remnants of the paraffin. She capped the jar and tossed it to Jenny, who caught it and promptly uncapped it and dumped the contents onto the hordes still struggling out of the sewer. Madame whirled, kicked the lantern, and sent it into the middle of the scrum. The revenants fell back, blazing. That left few enough, Jenny thought, surely.

The revenant Madame had hit with the fireball rose to its feet, and began to move forward again.

Jenny looked about frantically; they'd gotten things out of order somehow, but now she was close to her own sword, and she lunged for it. "Ma'am!" Jenny called, as she tossed her sword, scabbard and all, across the pit.

Oh, Jenny thought as the other revenants closed in, joined now by some of their flaming brothers and sisters, throwing away your weapon may have been a very bad idea.

Madame grabbed the blade out of the air and drew it in a flash. Whirling, she slashed the burning revenant through the thigh and then, even as it fell, through the neck. The head, its hair smoldering, dropped to the ground and spun into the corner. Madame rolled again, slicing the legs out from under another revenant, slashing away the groping arms of a third. Then she ran, straight at the pit, and leapt it. She slashed one revenant through the belly, then stabbed it with Jenny's sword. "Grab that, dear," Madame said, making for the revenant that had Madame's own swords through its gut.

The revenant lurched toward Madame. It was well-dressed, thought the portion of Jenny's brain that wasn't occupied with trying to withdraw her own sword from the chest of an undead groom. Butler, perhaps. She pivoted, using the groom to shield herself from a revenant that was afire, and then used her foot to push the groom free and, with the burning revenant, back into the sewer, as the butler came ever closer.

The butler's head twisted clumsily, slumping as Lady Carrington's had. Its face turned to Madame, and it hissed.

"Hello," Madame said. "I believe you're holding something of mine."

Her tongue flashed.

The venom barb caught the revenant full in the face. Madame grasped the hilts of her swords, leapt off the ground with both feet, and planted a double kick to the revenant's chest. The revenant flew back and free of the blades and fell on its face. Madame dropped to the floor, took the fall, and got to her feet, flicking her swords to clear them of tissue.

"There," Madame said cheerfully, even as the burning revenants regained their footing. Soon they would again swell unendingly up through the floor. Madame sheathed one of her swords, giving herself a free hand. "That's got us a bit of breathing room. Grate! Hurry!"

The grate was iron, and heavy. They could manage it, awkwardly, between the two of them. Jenny gritted her teeth, and heaved, and tried not to think about the revenants shuffling toward them above, or the burning ones reconstituting their forces below. She glanced up, and wished she hadn't: the revenant butler had risen to its feet and had begun to shuffle sickeningly toward them, Madame's shed venom barb sticking horribly out of one vile and swollen eye.

"Venom doesn't work," said Madame. "Interesting. Immediate effect should be hemolytic." She frowned. "I don't think their blood is circulating."

There were times that Jenny found Madame's scientific curiosity admirable and even stimulating. _Other_ times. "'course not! They're dead!"

"That's what you said about Lady Carrington," said Madame. "Have we killed any of them?" She glanced at the one Jenny had dispatched with the chair leg. "That one -- no, its eyes are moving. And the one I beheaded is trying to bite." She turned to the revenants. "Can you understand me?" she said. "Can you speak?" The revenants shuffled closer. They made no answer, and no noise. "I didn't think so. Jenny, could Lady Carrington speak?"

"Very well, ma'am."

"Something must have gone wrong with these. That's why Lady Carrington threw them in the sewer."

"You think -- were they dead when she -- "

"Did whatever she did? Very possibly. And whatever's doing this to the bodies is trying to go forward anyway. Bit of an uphill battle, it seems. It must be a remarkable process. I think it's working through the central nervous system. The limbs we carve off don't continue operating. Cut them to bits and destroy the brains."

"Yes, ma'am."

"One! Two! Three!" The heavy grate clanked into place. Madame shoved Jenny's scabbard through the low rings on either side of it, holding it in. "There," Madame said. "The fire will burn through it, but it'll take a little time."

"Time enough, ma'am?"

Madame drew her second blade. "Depends on how fast you are, dear. Back to back, now. Ready?"

Jenny gripped her sword. The revenants were almost to them, again. "As ever, ma'am."

Once the situation was controlled, the revenants made for simple opponents. Disappointingly simple, Jenny thought: you cut off their arms, so they couldn't grab, and their legs, so they couldn't walk, and then you cut off their heads, so they couldn't do anything, and then you stabbed them through the brain. The revenants were slow and the swords sharp, so none of it took very long. The only tricky part was if you got the sequence out of order, because then you had to watch for the ones that had had their legs chopped off but still had arms, so they didn't crawl up to you on the floor. But even if they did, you just stabbed them in the brain and they were done.

"More in the sewer, ma'am?" Jenny said hopefully, when they'd finished.

Madame frowned. "I wonder," she said.

It was only then that Jenny realized that she hadn't heard the grate rattling in some time. They approached the grate and looked down. The revenants were slumped in a pile below, burning, unmoving.

"Interesting," Madame said. "They're insensitive to pain, but fire did the trick, eventually. Perhaps it took time for the heat to cook them thoroughly?"

"Like a roast, ma'am?"

"I suppose so." Madame turned away from the grate. She stepped over to the first revenant she had beheaded. Its head, still whole, was facing the corner. Madame bent down and picked it up. She brought it to the level of her face and gazed into its eyes. "What are you?" she said. The head only gnashed its teeth at her.

Madame shrugged, dropped it to the floor and sliced the head into two pieces just above the eyebrows. The features slackened and the jaws quit snapping. "And that's the lot," Madame said. Her voice held a strange, absent tone that Jenny knew all too well. Madame reserved it for things that were interesting and also probably extremely dangerous. "Ma'am?" Jenny said.

"Ssh," said Madame. Her eyes were focused on the open wound she'd cleaved in the head. "Something's moving."

Madame leaned forward and squinted into the gray-and-crimson horror that was the revenant's bisected brain, then turned her sword point downwards and thrust home. She wiggled the sword briefly, drove it deeper, and then stepped back with an air of satisfaction. The blade squelched free. Attached to it was something gray and glistening, bloated like a garden slug, but with insectile jaws that were curved and wickedly sharp, and surrounding them an array of frantically squirming little tentacles.

Jenny, whose stomach had been well-honed by her long acquaintanceship with Madame, turned her face into a corner and was quietly sick.

"Hello!" said Madame cheerfully. She raised the sword so she could get a better look, but kept well clear as the body writhed and the tentacles reached desperately toward her face. "You're very interesting. What are you?"

The little beast writhed, and shuddered, and died.

"Just as well, really," said Madame. "I don't think it would have answered any questions. Jenny, dear? Bring the jar."

* * *

Jenny's formal education had begun and ended with her mother teaching her her letters. There had been other lessons, afterward, but largely practical and self-instructed: "making do with little or nothing" was important, as were "how not to be cheated" and "when to lie, and to whom, and how to keep them from catching you at it."

Also: "even if you believe something to be dead, do not take your eyes off it until it has been dissected, even if this means keeping it in a paraffin jar balanced on the corner of Madame's bathtub." Jenny had learned that lesson the hard way.

"Ma'am?" said Jenny as she scrubbed. "Where do you think it came from?"

Madame took a long sip of her sloe gin and fastened her gaze on the paraffin jar. "It's a big universe, my dear," she said. "Could be almost anywhere." She held the glass against the side of her head, and leaned into it. "I'm not even sure its native star is in Mrs. Fleming's class G. It's definitely not from Earth, though. We'd have seen something like its progenitor species, even if you hadn't."

When Madame said "We" like that, she meant "Silurians." Jenny couldn't resist. "Didn't see our lot coming, though, did you, ma'am?"

Madame rolled her eyes. "No, Jenny. I remember right before we went to sleep, someone was asking, 'should we wipe out those furry little multituberculates?' and I said, 'oh, leave them, they're so cute; what harm could they possibly do?'" She downed the rest of her gin and made a face. "Two hundred million years later --!"

"We all oversleep sometimes, ma'am."

"Spoken like someone who owns a planet. Mammals. Why do I put up with you?"

There were times when Madame's reptilian chauvinism was intensely irritating. Other times, Jenny found it oddly endearing. "Because I'm always warm everywhere, ma'am."

"True," said Madame, scowling. She sank deeper into the water.

The bray of the doorbell sounded. Jenny rose from her position beside the tub and leaned out the window. "Coach, ma'am," she said. "Mrs. Everard."

"She came tonight?"

"You sent Parker with a note --"

"I didn't think she'd come _tonight_. Is she mad?"

"She does owe you, ma'am," said Jenny. "Suspect she wants to work off the debt."

Madame uttered a sharp but pungent syllable.

"Shall I tell her you said that, ma'am?"

"No. Let her in. Set up the screen, and bring my dressing gown." Madame glared at her empty glass as if it had betrayed her. "And another gin."

* * *

Madame Vastra had taught Jenny a number of games, some of which Jenny could play with her clothes on. The two of those that Jenny played most often were detective games: one was called who-is-what, and the other was called count-the-lies.

"Ah, Mrs. Everard," said Madame from behind her screen. "How nice to see you again."

The screen was opaque, so Jenny thought: one, two.

Mrs. Everard settled into her chair and scowled. It was her friendliest expression, which was saying little for it. Jenny thought: she is old, and stiff, and snobbish, and her children hate her, and before his death her husband had spent all his time at his club rather than with her, and these decisions by her husband and children were right. Jenny did not need to play who-is-what to know any of those things; she knew them from experience, and had no wish to know Mrs. Everard any better than she already did.

"Please do me the courtesy of remaining behind that screen," said Mrs. Everard. "I have not the desire of seeing you for a second time, nor the capacity to withstand it." Mrs. Everard had not been unduly alarmed when her brother-in-law had been revealed to have been a Zygon impersonator and shortly afterward dispatched on her drawing room carpet, so Jenny thought, three.

Madame stirred her gin with a long forefinger. "I would not say the same, Mrs. Everard." Jenny thought, four. "But pray have no fear on that score. I thank you for coming, and am, as always, glad to have your very kind forbearance." Five, six. "Now, please tell me what you know of Lady Carrington."

Mrs. Everard dropped her teacup.

Curiously, Jenny's only thought was, _the next thing she says makes seven._

She was looking forward to hearing this lie, because it would tell her what Mrs. Everard was trying to hide. But Mrs. Everard just glared, and snapped, "Your maid is clumsy!" which was a seventh lie but told Jenny nothing. "Why do you ask after Lady Carrington? Has something happened to her?"

"Why?" said Madame. "Do you think it should?"

Mrs. Everard grumbled, but then fell silent. Jenny could sense Madame's patience wearing thin. The day had been a long one, and the gin and bath had been helping, but the interruption and Mrs. Everard on top of that were too much to bear. Jenny braced herself for what she knew was coming.

"Mrs. Everard," said Madame, "I do not think your ill manners extend to ignoring the debt that you owe me, so I will speak frankly, because anyone counting the polite lies in this conversation --" Jenny flushed. " -- is likely to be growing either taxed by or bored of it. I wish to know of Lady Carrington's recent doings, and what you personally know of her interests, inclinations, activities, and opinions. I wish these to be relayed to me quickly, as quickly as you came upon receiving my summons, because I like your company as little as you like mine. You cannot repay your entire debt and begone, but you can repay a portion of it, and I think it in very much your interests that you do so."

Mrs. Everard's lips parted, and Jenny saw her teeth. It was not a smile. Mrs. Everard's muscles were tensed like a coiled spring everywhere Jenny could see, from the backs of her hands to her thin neck, every inch of her tight with hate.

Mrs. Everard said, "Then let me see you, monster."

Madame stretched up one long leg and tapped the screen forcefully with her foot. It fell with a clatter, and she and Mrs. Everard beheld each other, with level gazes and no effort to hide their mutual dislike.

"Ah," said Mrs. Everard. "The beast at last."

"You have not seen a beast, Mrs. Everard," said Madame. "Not yet."

"Oh? Not you, nor the creature you slaughtered in my drawing room?" Mrs. Everard raised her eyebrows. "How revolting the standards for beasts must be, these days."

"Quite," said Madame. "You've some distance to go, I'm afraid. Now tell me of Lady Carrington. She is well-respected, happily married?"

"As far as anyone knows."

"Children?"

"Two sons at Eton, a daughter stillborn, another son dead in an accident at age three. That was when the family was in Hong Kong, before Lord Carrington inherited the title."

"Hong Kong?" said Madame, in surprise. She frowned. "Lady Carrington's maidservant, Kathleen -- these girls often start quite young; did they have her in those days?"

"I am sure I don't know."

"Charities?"

"Ah. Now there's a hint of scandal. Most women confine themselves sensibly to old soldiers, small children, and widows. Not Lady Carrington. Would you believe, the sciences? Donations to the Geological and Meteorological Societies, to fund museums and research! She even fancies herself an amateur scientist, after a fashion. Not traipsing over hill and dale, digging for fossils like Mrs. Anning, of course. But she buys them, and classifies them. Fossils and fallen stars." Mrs. Everard shuddered. "Unseemly for a woman to have such a hobby."

Madame groaned and leaned her head back, thumping it against the chair. "I am an idiot," she said. "Tektites and iron wouldn't be in the same place; no, one's meteorites, found anywhere, one's ejecta from large impact, found in geographically-restricted fields. Of _course_ she hasn't been going to them, she's been having them brought to her --" Mrs. Everard smiled thinly to see this, and raised an inquiring eyebrow, but Madame merely grimaced and waved a hand. "No, no, Mrs. Everard, please go on. Educate me further as to my deficiencies."

"There are so many, and I should be happy to oblige you," said Mrs. Everard, "but unfortunately my knowledge of the woman is at an end. What is there to tell? She is not a beautiful woman, and never was. But handsome, yes; rich, witty, very skilled at conniving her way into useful friendships and manipulating the seating arrangement at parties." She shrugged. "Or so I hear."

"Yes," said Madame. "You would have to have. As far as I can tell from the society pages, despite your undoubted prominence she never invited you to her parties. I wonder why?"

Mrs. Everard opened her mouth to reply. Then, uncharacteristically, she held her words, leaned back in her chair, and smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile, but a knowing one. "One may wonder many things," she said. "I wonder, given your evident dislike of my person and distrust of the quality of my information, why you ever invited me tonight."

"Why else?" said Madame. "For the pleasure of your company."

Mrs. Everard laughed. "And it has been a pleasure," she said, rising. "Usually one pays a shilling for such a sight. I daresay I'll not see anything as unusual tomorrow night, at Madame LeClerc's masquerade." She cast a mocking smile in Jenny's direction. "A suggestion, swordmaiden," she said. "You might wish to find some other employment, if one will have you." Her gaze fell coolly on Madame, still lounging in her chair. "Doubtless the Empire will tolerate inhuman adventuresses playing at its security for only so long."

As Mrs. Everard swept out of the room, Jenny looked quickly at Madame, who appeared not angered, but puzzled. "The Empire?" said Madame. "Tolerate?" She frowned. "She's planning something. I wonder what."

"Call Torchwood on us, ma'am? Not that they'd do anything."

"She should know they won't do anything. She's had that talk before." Madame shrugged. "Though I can't say I'm surprised to learn she disliked Lady Carrington."

"Why, ma'am?"

"Lady Carrington is everything Mrs. Everard was, and more," said Madame. "When Mrs. Everard was young. Before her husband died, and she found she had no status of her own. It must grate to see her place supplanted by a woman who has her own accomplishments."

Jenny said, "I think I'd've liked Lady Carrington, ma'am."

"So would I." Madame set her teacup back into its saucer and placed it on the table, then picked up the paraffin jar from the bookshelf. "The laboratory, Jenny," she said. "Let's see if we cannot find ourselves at least one or two small answers."

* * *

The laboratory, along with Madame's Silurian and anachronistic library, took up much of the third floor. It looked not much different from a well-appointed facility available to any amateur scientist of the day. Madame believed strongly in blending in, or so she claimed. In practice, Jenny had observed, "blending in" usually meant taking some wildly advanced device, sheathing it in brass and wood, and affixing a mechanism that was entirely superfluous and employed more gears than even the maddest inventor would find necessary. Or, in the case of the tool Madame was just reaching for, looked like a perfectly normal awl until you grasped it, at which point its point curled up like a metallic tentacle and groped at the air.

"Ma'am," said Jenny, "why would you even want a device like that?"

"It connects to your nervous system and responds to your every thought, dear. It's like having another prehensile tongue, except on your hand."

Jenny's face twisted in revulsion. "Why would you want a prehensile tongue on your hand?! -- ugh, ma'am, don't look at me like that, I _know where that tool's been_."

Madame laughed. "Pass me a pin, will you?" she said. "There!" The little beast in the dissecting-tray was neatly slit up the middle; using the tentacle, Madame held the sides open and slipped pins into place. "Now, that's very interesting," she said. "Do you see that, Jenny? No anus at all."

"Then how does it make its piles, ma'am?"

"I don't think it has any to make. No alimentary canal. That mouth isn't a mouth. The little jaws are just cutting tools. Very, very good ones."

"So it doesn't eat?"

"Oh, it eats," Madame said, as she poked with the tentacle. "Psychic energy, I'd wager. Look, these tentacles at the front connect through nervous fibers to this." She tapped lightly at a large beige organ, roughly cylindrical. It took up a good portion of the slug's body. "I wonder if --" she knit her brow, and the awl was steady; a moment later, the tentacles at the front of the slug's mouth twitched. Jenny yelped and leapt back. Madame laughed. "Yes, indeed," she said. "Don't use this tool on one of these when it's alive; you'd be doing its job for it. It taps into the host's brain with the tentacles, then uses the host's nervous system from there to animate the body and act as an extension of itself. Steals psychic energy with a touch."

Jenny remembered the scratches on the nape of Kathleen's neck. "Or a kiss."

"Yes. Don't let Lady Carrington kiss you."

Jenny made a face. "Wasn't planning on it," she said. She craned her neck, trying to make sense of the little slug's innards. "That's the brain? It's awfully big." A disturbing thought occurred to her. "Ma'am? Does it have any blood flowing? Or anywhere for blood to flow? Did you stab it through the brain, or its nerves, or -- " she groped for the words. "It's not like anything on Earth at all, so why did you stabbing it kill it?"

"I don't think it did," Madame said. "My guess is that it can't survive unprotected in Earth's atmosphere. It needs a nice, snug, safe environment. Right inside a skull." She tossed the dissected slug back into the jar, then filled the jar with formaldehyde. "That's a small mercy. They'd be the very devil to stop, otherwise."

"Back to Lady Carrington's house, ma'am?"

Madame shook her head. "Not tonight. We both need rest, and I want a better idea of what I'm dealing with. I need to do some reading. Go on to bed."

Jenny knew from long experience that when Madame turned her attention to research any distractions only made her surly and irritable, so she curtseyed a good-night and tiptoed away and down the stairs. Glancing back, she saw that Madame had flung herself into an armchair, draping one long leg carelessly over the chair's arm. A stack of books, ranging from the ancient to the wildly anachronistic, was on the table beside her; the volume in Madame's hands wrote and rewrote itself as Madame's clawed forefinger brushed over its pages.

Jenny had her own room, and tonight she retired there after she put out Madame's nightdress, knowing full well it would be very late before the gown would be used.

* * *

The movement of the coach rocked Jenny from side to side. Her breakfast had gone down well enough, but it sat uneasily, and left a sense of queasiness and a bad taste in her mouth. Of course, that might also have been the prospect of slicing Lady Carrington's skull in two. The jiang shi might or might not be a person now, but it had been an admirable one once. The prospect of killing the jiang shi was, in its way, as alarming as seeing it had been.

And Kathleen welcomed its kisses, and its hands upon her.

"Why wouldn't she come with me?" Jenny said.

"Hm?" said Madame, shrouded in her hat and veil.

"Kathleen. I grabbed her hand, and I said, 'Run.' She didn't run, ma'am. Why not? Yes, she loves Lady Carrington, but after what she's seen -- "

Madame closed her self-writing book, with one clawed finger marking her place. "Supposing that one day I came to you, my dear, and said, 'I cannot tell you how much I loathe my present life, Jenny. Hiding my form in veil and cloak, denied the proper respect for my consort, the stench of humans in my nostrils. Let us kill them all and rule upon the rubble. The Silurians shall rise again, and you shall be consort to their Queen.' What would you do?"

It was not as difficult a question as Madame thought, because Madame was prone to grumbling something very similar while she was paying her taxes. "Make you a gin and a bath, ma'am."

Madame did not laugh. "Perhaps I should start smaller," she said. "You know that human food ill satisfies me, that I crave fresher meat and more of it. If I want someone to disappear, _I know how to make them disappear_." She lowered the slats on the carriage shutters and peeked out. "Mrs. Everard, for instance."

"You're not going to eat Mrs. Everard, ma'am. She'd be stringy."

"So was Jack the Ripper. What if I wanted to murder people? Not often, not many, one or two, unpleasant little mammals who really have it coming --"

"You wouldn't."

"Why not?"

" 'cos you're a decent person, and it's not right," said Jenny.

"Kathleen said the jiang shi didn't mean to kill the servants. If she were starving -- "

"It's still not right. And I wouldn't let you do it, either."

"How? You can't best me with a sword."

"I'd go to Torchwood, or the police, or I'd kill you in your sleep." Jenny's voice caught in her throat. "And it would break my heart, ma'am, it would break it forever, so please don't. Please."

Her eyes stung, and she wiped at them. When she had could see again, the carriage was passing through a market. Crowds of people bustled about, content in their ignorance. Jenny had been one of them, once. She felt a familiar coolness press against her skin, and looked down to see Madame's clawed hand upon her own.

"That is my greatest reason for hoping war never comes between humans and Silurians," Madame said softly. "Sometimes one finds one's heart on the wrong side."

A rogue band of Silurians had risen the year before, bent on starting just such a war; they had disguised their attacks as anarchist strikes but had made the mistake of using advanced explosives. Madame had found them, defeated them, and put them to sleep for a hundred thousand years.

"Ma'am," said Jenny, "which side are you on?"

Madame didn't answer, but only smiled, a little sadly, and Jenny understood.

She had never thought of Madame as having given up anything for their life. Of course Madame would want to live in London and solve mysteries; what other choice could anyone possibly make? But it had been a choice, and it had cost. I am not Kathleen, thought Jenny; I am the jiang shi. "Kathleen made the same choice you did," Jenny said.

Madame said softly, "Let us see how it works out for her."

Glancing out the window, Madame struck twice at the roof of the coach. Parker drew to a halt. Jenny craned her neck, but saw only buildings she didn't recognize. "What're we doing here, ma'am?"

"We need our client," Madame said. "See if you can borrow her."

The laundry itself was obvious enough. Even if Jenny had been unable to read the sign, she would have known the place from the noise, the smell, and the steam. Beyond the sounds of the implements, there rose occasional shouts in Chinese; to Jenny's nose came the odors of chemicals, lye and things more pungent. She stepped inside and up to the counter, where a harried laundryman was wrapping parcels for delivery as an elderly housewife harangued him, and he her, with what they were evidently content to be mutual incomprehension.

Jenny waved a hand to capture the laundryman's attention. "Knee how!" she said. That, or something like it, meant hello, she knew. "Wong Tung-Mei?"

The laundryman looked at her with the expression of a railroad employee who had just been asked when the next rhinoceros was due. Jenny knew she hadn't gotten Mrs. Wong's name quite right, but she didn't think her pronounciation had been that bad. "Wong," she said. "Mrs. Wong, yeh? Tung-Mei?" The laundryman said something and waved a hand. Jenny couldn't follow the Chinese, but she'd seen a wave of dismissal often enough. She held up a coin, plunked it down on the counter, and hopped up and across. The laundryman shouted in protest, but the elderly housewife shouted at him, and then Jenny was into the back of the laundry.

Jenny had washed clothes, of course, but on nothing like this scale. Men and women soaked, sorted, scrubbed clothes, in vast tubs and with giant washboards. Their hands were calloused, and large, and reddened; sweat gleamed on their skin, and their faces were worn and haggard with the toil.

"Why have you come?" said a voice from near Jenny's feet.

Jenny looked down. Kneeling by a washtub, Mrs. Wong looked nothing like she had in Madame's drawing room. She was disheveled and poorly dressed, with wet patches on her clothing. Even as she spoke, she grasped a steaming bucket of water and poured it into one of the large tubs. "I've come because we need you," Jenny said.

"My husband will not permit it. I must work. Later, perhaps --"

Jenny held up a coin. "Reckon he'd let you go if I give him this?"

Mrs. Wong glanced at the coin. "No."

Jenny rummaged for another. "What about this one?"

"For that," said Mrs. Wong, "he will let you borrow both me and his sister."

"Don't let Madame Vastra hear you say that," said Jenny. "Which one is he?"

She had the feeling, leaving, that Mr. Wong had the impression that the British were insane. But he'd bitten the coin, and pocketed it, and sent Jenny out with Mrs. Wong after asking his wife a few questions. Jenny had no idea what explanation Mrs. Wong had made.

The carriage was a tight fit for three. Madame, her back to the carriage's front, sat on one side alone, shrouded in her hood. Jenny and Mrs. Wong squeezed beside each other on the opposite bench. "Good morning, Mrs. Wong," said Madame. "Thank you for joining us. And thank you for bringing us your case; it's proving to be most interesting."

"She is a jiang shi, then," said Mrs. Wong.

"If she is not," said Madame, "she is close enough."

Mrs. Wong closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, released it in a long sigh, and then took another. "You agree I am not mad," she said.

"I know that you are not. I congratulate you on your attention to detail, and your courage. I do not know if, as you had said, all London is in danger, though it is possible; at the very least, a young woman is in great danger of body and spirit, and requires our help."

"The maidservant."

"Yes. She has stayed in her post through circumstances of great terror and no little toil, out of a deep sense of devotion. This may seem like madness --"

Mrs. Wong smiled thinly. "No," she said, smoothing her stained workdress. "It is familiar. To many, I expect." She glanced at Madame, and then at Jenny. "But why have you come to me now?"

"Because now that we know you were not mistaken, and that Lady Carrington is, for all purposes, a jiang shi, a question becomes very important," said Madame. "And it is a question that you may help us answer." She leaned forward. "You said that Kathleen left you, and reported to an alley -- this alley? yes? -- where the jiang shi waited. It directed Kathleen to a shop, where she collected a parcel. _What was in it?_ Jenny, you saw Lady Carrington's kitchen; were there signs Kathleen was cooking for two?"

"No, ma'am. For one."

"Then the jiang shi has no human needs, or neglects them. So for what purpose did it come here?" Madame turned to Mrs. Wong.

Mrs. Wong said, "The third shop from the corner, next to the bookseller's. It sells paper."

"Paper. Jenny, go with Mrs. Wong and make inquiries."

Jenny nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

The paper shop was small, but expensive. In its window, Jenny saw papers of real quality: creams and whites and light blues, monogrammed samples, all of it beautiful. Mrs. Wong's gaze, she noted, was on the shop next door. "Spend a lot of time at the bookseller's, do you?" Jenny said.

"What I can. I buy books, read them, sell them back at half-price, and buy more books. I wish that I had time enough, and coin, for more." Mrs. Wong's voice was deeply regretful. It was more emotion than Jenny had ever seen her to exhibit.

There were books upon books upon books in Madame's house; despite an open invitation, Jenny had never done more than glance at them. Madame had even given her a Christmas present of a volume like Madame's, that rewrote itself while Jenny watched, but Jenny had never had the patience for it. Now, seeing Mrs. Wong's hungry glance, she felt ashamed. "Come along," she said, and reached for the door. "I'll be cold to you, inside; Madame has instructed me to hire you but I see you as a threat to my position. Do you understand?"

"We pretend to be what we want -- " Mrs. Wong glanced at the signboard. "-- Mr. Toynbee to see. Why do we want him to see that?"

"People're comfortable with what they think they understand. We give him the bait, he walks right in. You'll see what I mean. And if you stay still he'll watch me, not you, so you look around and see if there's anything strange."

The small room was filled with shelves and tables, all of them showing samples of elegant paper. Some of it was textured for effect, some of it smooth as glass, all of it costly. A desk at the front of the room carried several small samples of different types, and pens and inkpots. Behind the desk sat a stout, white haired man with a red nose. He was absorbed in the study of a piece of paper, tilting it from all angles, viewing it in and out of the sunlight. He did not glance up as Jenny and Mrs. Wong entered.

"'scuse me, Mister," Jenny said as she entered. "My mistress sent me with a question for you."

The stout man glanced up at Jenny. His gaze went from her, to Mrs. Wong, and back, and his lips pursed. Jenny could see that he even if he did not know the game as she did, he was playing who-is-what with the two of them. Jenny knew what he would see: _the maid's uniform is in good order and she has good shoes_ meant _her mistress keeps a good house and has money_ and _the Chinese is a bedraggled woman fresh from the laundry_ meant _the mistress is hiring more servants for washing but has not enough money to hire another white_. Which meant _the mistress has ambitions above her grasp_ which meant _social climber_ which meant _customer_. That Mrs. Wong was fresh from the laundry meant _the maid got the Chinese before coming into my shop, which she had to know would offend me_ , which meant _the maid is stupid and possibly hopes I'll run the Chinese off, but if I did this would lose me a social-climbing customer, so nice try, girl._

Jenny could not count on most people to play who-is-what. Good merchants, however, she could rely upon to be fairly skilled at it.

The stout man glared at Mrs. Wong, to show his disapproval, then lowered his gaze to her hands. "Don't touch anything," he said sternly, and that was all.

Mrs. Wong nodded. Jenny feigned slight disappointment.

"What do you want, girl?" said the stout man.

"Mr. Toynbee?" said Jenny. "My mistress has heard your shop has fine custom." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Lady Carrington."

Mr. Toynbee grunted. He pushed back in his chair and twisted to one side, angling the paper so he could see how it appeared in shadow.

"My mistress understands," said Jenny daringly, "that Lady Carrington's maidservant has recently visited your shop, and wonders if she may enquire --"

"Wants the same stuff, does she?"

"Er, if it's possible, yes."

"Impressed by it, when she saw it?"

"I suppose so --"

Mr. Toynbee laughed, and shook his head. "That's what this is really about," he said. "Isn't it?"

"I don't --"

"Your mistress wants to know if she's included. I haven't the foggiest. We do provide clerkship service, for creating and addressing, but Lady Carrington's girl said her mistress would decline that. Understandably: to go by the sales slip, the girl has a very fine hand." He smiled happily. "Nicely understated paper, too. Now, this gilt edge for Madame LeClerc; vellum for a gentleman whose name I won't mention, but Lady Carrington --"

Jenny's mind raced for a moment before reaching the obvious conclusion. "Do you always do Lady Carrington's invitations?"

"No, this was the first; but I hope to again. If your mistress has interest in a future guest list, and we have one, she might peek at it for a consideration, but I'd think that sort of thing to be above her. Wouldn't you?"

"No, sir," said Jenny, "and I expect I'll be back. Thank you for your kind attention."

Mr. Toynbee grunted and returned his attention to his paper. Jenny turned away and grasped Mrs. Wong's arm. "Back to Madame," she whispered.

The carriage, when they reached it, was empty. Jenny glanced up at Parker, who sat on his box, stolid as ever. He shrugged his round shoulders and pointed. Jenny turned, and saw a veiled, shrouded figure standing in an alley. Mrs. Wong tensed and caught her breath. Jenny put a hand on her arm. "It's Madame," she said.

"She is standing where the jiang shi was," said Mrs. Wong.

Jenny frowned. "Ma'am?" she called. "What is it?"

Madame squatted down. She looked at the wall of the building, reached out a hand, then let it fall back. She rose as Jenny and Mrs. Wong approached, then glanced up and down the alley, and approached the nearest window and knocked on it.

Jenny and Mrs. Wong looked quizzically at each other. Jenny squatted, as Madame had. There were scuff marks on the insides of the low piers holding up the building's side porch, where something had brushed against them. It was too far down for Jenny to see inside. Mrs. Wong, who had dressed for hard work, dropped to her belly and looked. "Clothes," said Mrs. Wong. "Bottles, a pipe, a blanket." She straightened up. "Someone slept there."

The window opposite opened. An aged woman leaned out. She blinked when she saw Madame's shrouded form. "What do you want?" she said.

"I was just wondering about the body," Madame said. "There was one, was there not? Here, in the alley, yesterday."

"The beggar Chinaman," said the woman. "He finally died. Drank himself to death, the sot."

"His sister is in my employ," said Madame. "She seeks his body."

"Rubbish tip, I shouldn't wonder. They came for it, they did whatever they do. Glad he's gone, the filthy tramp."

The woman shut the window. Madame turned back to Jenny and Mrs. Wong. "I had two questions," she said. "'What was in the package' was the first." The second was, 'Why did the former Lady Carrington get out of her carriage?' And the answer is, 'Because she was hungry.' " Madame leaned forward again, to inspect the scuff marks. "You said she told Kathleen 'no one must know.' So she'd stay close to home, she'd hide. But Kathleen came on some important errand, and the jiang shi came with her, to keep her well in view. She would have stayed in her carriage, but where most people saw a man who was not a man at all, she saw… food."

"Ma'am," said Jenny, "does that mean the body's going to --"

"Possibly. We may need to run by the mortuary. What of the shop?"

Jenny had almost forgotten, in the momentary excitement. "The man said that it was stationery for invitations, ma'am."

Madame froze. Slowly, she rose to her feet, then turned to face Mrs. Wong, all the while stepping away, toward the carriage.

"Mrs. Wong," Madame said, as urgently as Jenny had ever heard her, "with your permission, we shall keep you on retainer for the day, for you may pass as the dead man's relative, and you may also speak with your own people, if need be. Conduct your first inquiries here; Parker shall return for you directly, and take you on to the mortuary. Discover the fate of that corpse -- and don't worry, if it does reanimate I expect that Parker can dispatch it with his lead-lined stick. For you, I suggest a change of clothes; as you filled my dressing gown admirably, Parker can arrange one if you cannot. Come, Jenny!"

"Ma'am," said Jenny, "what --"

"Mrs. Everard!" Madame leapt into the carriage and closed the shutters on the windows.

Jenny's mind raced as she climbed into the carriage. Mrs. Everard? She cast her mind back to Mrs. Everard's visit, and her discussion of Lady Carrington. _"She never invited you to her parties,"_ Madame had said. And Mrs. Everard hadn't had a return for that, but she'd _smiled_ \--

"Parker!" Madame shouted. "Lady Carrington's house! Quickly!"

* * *

The first sign that something was wrong were the carriages.

There were eight of them, lined up outside Lady Carrington's house, and all of them were empty. The coaches were expensive and well-maintained, the horses were fine horseflesh, and some of the coach doors were monogrammed with initials even Jenny recognized. One of the coaches she had seen outside Madame's house the night before. The drivers sat on the boxes and read penny dreadfuls or racing forms. They looked stiff and uncomfortable, Jenny thought; usually they would be swapping jokes or pretending unconvincingly not to drink.

"You made a rapport with Kathleen," said Madame. "Can you do it again?"

"I think so, ma'am," said Jenny. "Servants' entrance looks clear. What about you?"

Madame adjusted her hat and lowered her heavy veil into place. "I had thought," she said, checking her sword, "that I would walk through the front door. You have three minutes."

Jenny said admiringly, "Brass, ma'am."

The drivers did not whistle as she passed, as drivers usually did. That was odd. Not that Jenny missed it: she supposed she had no objection to men trying to flirt with her, if they must and if they were reasonably polite about it, but whistling at girls on a street corner? Did it ever work? And, she wondered, if it did, should she have tried it years ago?

It was too late to wonder about such things.

The servants' entrance was unlocked. No one was in the kitchen. Jenny listened hard, and heard only silence. The guests, presuming they were alive, were somewhere deeper within the house. The kitchen door through which the jiang shi had appeared was ahead of her, and Jenny approached it with caution, then pushed it open.

The door led to a cavernous hallway, with another door directly opposite and light coming in from windows further down. Walking toward the windows, Jenny saw the house's front door, opposite the grand stair. Beside the door was a glass-fronted cabinet, in rich dark wood. Inside she glimpsed photographs, a lock of hair, relics of the dead son. Beside the cabinet was a small table, on which the post was laid out neatly. She glanced over the post, because habit had taught her to. There was a letter from Burma, which would be Lord Carrington, and two from Eton, which would be the sons; none of those had been opened. Another envelope had been. It was printed on rich paper, beautifully addressed in a fine hand, and the edges were lined with gilt, but whatever it had held was gone.

Behind Jenny, a door creaked open.

Jenny had just taken a breath. She neither let it out, nor took another. She closed her mouth and waited, moving nothing but her eyes. The glass-fronted cabinet showed her dim outlines of a shuffling reflection behind her. She couldn't see the jiang shi clearly, but but she could hear the creak of the floor, the shuffling, the clumsy hop, the rattle of the jiang shi's own hitched breathing. A few moments later, it came into view, flop-scraping with every lurch forward, sparing Jenny not a glance.

Then it stopped, and sniffed the air, twice.

The jiang shi made a short, powerful inhalation, then a long, controlled exhale. Madame had delivered an impromptu lecture once about how the air was like an ocean, and Jenny had honed a dagger and half listened, but now Madame's words came flooding back. It can sense currents in the air, Jenny thought; it suspects something and it's making currents now, feeling how the air flows, trying to see.

Jenny knew she could not hold her breath much longer.

Cautiously, Jenny backed away. She moved as slowly and as smoothly as she could, the way Madame did when practicing the more meditative forms of Venusian aikido, the way Madame had made Jenny move when Madame had first taught her the sword. The jiang shi swung an arm close to where she had been, but Jenny was gone from there. Not by far. Not by enough.

Already Jenny's lungs were aching. She could not open the front door unnoticed, could not hope to make it down the hall. She had but one hope, and it was the door the jiang shi had come through, just a few steps away.

Jenny braced herself against the wall and eased to the side. The growing dizziness made it harder to move smoothly. Her muscles were trembling as she felt the recess of the doorway and moved as carefully as she could through it.

Voices sounded down the hall. One of them was Mrs. Everard's. The jiang shi's reaction was alarmed. It slammed the door Jenny had just gone through, and locked it. Then it turned away. There was a small window in the door, and through it Jenny saw the jiang shi quickly turn away from the voices and flop-scrape away and out of sight.

Jenny reeled against a long worktable and sank to the floor, gasping like a fish. She stayed on the floor for long seconds until the dizziness passed, and then slowly found her feet and rose, propping herself against the wall with one shaking hand. She turned to look around the room, and caught her breath at what she saw on the worktable, and the shelves, and in the little glass cases.

The room was filled with meteorites.

They were on the tables, and on the shelves, and in the little glass cases and bell-jars scattered about. All of them were neatly labeled. Jenny saw earth rocks, too: jades and geodes and crystals and nondescript lumps that someone had nevertheless taken the care to categorize. Several of them were clustered by the long worktable by a window. One, a meteorite the size of both of Jenny's fists together, was broken open. Inside was a yawning concavity, the edges of which were lined with narrow metallic piping in an arrangement that was far from natural. The piping was broken. Jenny took the meteorite cautiously into her hands and turned it over. Up close, she could see writing on the outside of the meteorite, engraved in what looked like several alien languages. The meteorite's inside smelled like the air after a thunderstorm.

Jenny tucked the meteorite into the pocket on her apron. Madame would want to see this, she knew.

She turned back to see a face watching her through the window in the door. The watcher was Mrs. Everard. Her expression was curiously flat, and smug.

"You have to get the other women out of here," Jenny said, pressing herself against the little window. "There's not much time."

"What is Lady Carrington going to do?" said Mrs. Everard. "Eat us?"

"Possibly. She's a jiang shi. A Chinese vampire."

"Chinese," murmured Mrs. Everard. "Of course. So many of them on these shores; one would expect they bring their unnatural filth. Mrs. Whitmire will be so scandalized to learn she has set foot in a Chinese house."

"Mrs. Whitmire? Here?" No, Jenny thought, it could not be that -- "Who else?"

"What?"

"Who else is here? You, Mrs. Whitmire --"

"Mrs. Leyden, Mrs. Drysdale, Mrs. van der Kamp --"

The blood drained from Jenny's face.

"You're all going to be murdered," she said. "Once Madame comes to the door, we'll have to act quickly. Don't run now; you'll have to get the other women out. I'd hoped Lady Carrington's maid Kathleen would help, but she won't." Jenny's mouth was dry. "We may have to fight her, too."

"Whatever are you babbling about, girl?"

 _The man at the paper store said Lady Carrington's maid addressed her envelopes,_ thought Jenny. _He said she has a fine hand._ "Lady Carrington didn't send your invitation. Kathleen did, when Lady Carrington wanted visitors to murder."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because _Kathleen sent out invitations to old women who are terrible to their servants._ "

Mrs. Everard's lips drew into a thin, small line.

"Mrs. Everard?" said a familiar voice from just down the hall. Jenny crouched against the door, below the window and out of sight. "I'm sorry. Milady's private laboratory -- she asks no one go in."

Jenny could hear Mrs. Everard turn. "I thought I saw your mistress down the hall, Kathleen," Mrs. Everard said. "She seemed to be moving oddly. Is she feeling quite all right?"

"I'm sure she'll tell you all about that herself, ma'am."

"Yes," said Mrs. Everard. "I'm sure she will." Jenny could almost see the malicious smile. "Oh, look," Mrs. Everard said. "Is Madame Vastra invited? She's coming up the walk; how nice!"

Kathleen's voice was panicked. "Who?"

"She's an old acquaintance of mine," said Mrs. Everard. "Quite clever. They say she's a remarkable detective. Isn't that lovely? Go to your mistress. I'll send Vastra on her way."

"My mistress begs you to come now," said Kathleen hesitantly. Jenny risked a cautious glance through the window. Kathleen was paler than before, with darker circles under her eyes, and she looked just shy of frantic. "Please."

On the front door, there sounded three knocks. Kathleen's eyes widened further.

"I'll come," said Mrs. Everard. "When I've sent Madame Vastra. On her way." She smiled thinly, and a small pink flash of tongue tapped lightly against her white porcelain teeth. "You should go to Lady Carrington, shouldn't you? I'd imagine it would be quite terrible if she found anything amiss."

Kathleen backed away, and then fairly dashed down the corridor to where the ladies awaited.

Mrs. Everard turned toward the front door. Jenny pressed herself against the little window. "Get me out of here," she hissed.

"It's locked," said Mrs. Everard. "Be quiet. The girl or her mistress will hear you."

Jenny looked around for something she could use as a lockpick, but when she heard the front door open she turned back. Madame was stepping into the house, and she and Mrs. Everard were speaking quietly. The front door was too far away for Jenny to make herself heard without speaking up, which she could not risk. Jenny frantically waved her arms, to no effect. The veil, she realized. Madame could not see her because of the veil.

Mrs. Everard took Madame by the arm and drew her inside. "It's terrible," Mrs. Everard was saying. "But there's still time. They're just this way; I'll show you."

As Madame gave Mrs. Everard her back, Mrs. Everard grasped a brass candlestick from the hall table and swung.

At the flash of motion, Madame turned. But not quickly enough. Struck on the head with the heavy candlestick, she collapsed. Mrs. Everard bent and, grasping Madame under the armpits, dragged her to a closet, and shut her in. When the door was closed, she set a chair at an angle beneath the doorknob, sealing Madame inside.

The worst of it was that Jenny dared not scream.

"It is the place of the British government to act," Mrs. Everard said. "Not of some vile inhuman adventuress. I do hope you don't think me stupid, girl. When several friends and I receive an invitation from a woman who has always shunned us, and I subsequently learn that Madame Vastra has taken an interest in that woman, well --!" She stepped closer. "The police already surround this house. At my signal, they will close in and put paid to what I have euphemised as an anarchist threat. And when all is done, I shall take my report to Torchwood, personally, and point out how the operation was nearly compromised by the whim of a monster and her pet."

"You fool," said Jenny in numb horror. She felt as if the world had dropped away; her ears heard the words muffled, as through cotton wool. "Oh my sweet Jesus, you pure fool."

A sudden shriek split the air.

More shrieks followed it. Then panic, the sounds of something heavy falling, scraping chairs, human fists, many of them, beating helplessly against a solid door. The screams grew yet more frantic, and the beating against the door intensified, going from fists to something heavier. Then there was a thud, and a strange, choked garble, and the struggles to open the door died away.

"You've killed them," said Jenny. Later, she thought, I will hate her later, I have to save her now. "It's not too late for you, let me out --"

"Oh, I think not."

"Let me out," said Jenny. "Let me out of here, right now, or you're going to die, I'm going to die, Madame's going to die! Do you understand?!"

Mrs. Everard laughed. "I, at least," she said, "will be going now. Someone has to make sure the police come in shooting." She turned and grasped the handle on the front door.

Nothing happened.

"Electromagnet," said Kathleen's voice. "That's what she calls it."

Jenny pressed against the glass, and craned her neck so she could see. Kathleen stood near the end of the hall. Next to her, hunched and foul, stood the jiang shi. "It's on all the doors now. She fixed that, she's ever so brilliant." There was a triumphant lilt to the words. "Told you, ma'am," Kathleen said, turning to the jiang shi's squat form. "See? There's one more. She's still alive."

"Ahhhh," said the jiang shi. Its body twisted -- first the top half, then the bottom, and when it was facing the direction it wanted it began to lurch forward.

"Keep away," said Mrs. Everard hoarsely, "keep away, I command you, monster, in the name of Christ and by the authority of the Queen, keep away --"

" _Alive_ ," hissed the jiang shi gleefully. "Alive. Alive, alive, alive -- "

"No problems this time, ma'am," said Kathleen. She was smiling; her teeth were less pallid than her face. "You've eaten well enough, I think."

Mrs. Everard backed away, backed away, but she was against the wall with nowhere to go, and the jiang shi shrieked, "Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive -- "

The jiang shi's long-nailed hands wrapped around Mrs. Everard's head, and then it leaned in, and kissed Mrs. Everard deeply on the mouth.

Mrs. Everard's eyes widened, and her body jerked convulsively. Jenny thought it was revulsion at being kissed by a woman, or disgust of the jiang shi, but no, it was something else, Mrs. Everard's eyes were rolling upward and her cheeks were bulging, grotesquely distended as if she were holding in vomit, and then something rippled, not in her flesh but, above it, a little slug like the one in the jar, only tiny, and then another and another, squeezing through the junction of the kiss, sliding across Mrs. Everard's face, to her nose, her ears, her eyes --

The jiang shi shoved Mrs. Everard away and reeled back, spitting. The jiang shi fell to its knees. More of the little slugs fell from its lips. They spilled from Mrs. Everard's, too, and fell from her face. The slugs writhed in the open air, and died, quivering, as they hit the floor.

Mrs. Everard was retching, choking; drops of blood oozed around her lips, and as she turned, clawing at her mouth, Jenny could see down her throat and it was nothing but slugs, working, burrowing, twisting around each other. Mrs. Everard's throat distended, her nostrils flared; with horror, Jenny saw her eyes bulging and slugs working away at the corners of the sockets. Blood ran from Mrs. Everard's nose, her eyes, her face grew redder and redder, more florid, and as Jenny watched Mrs. Everard, staggering, grasped her head and uttered a muted gargle that might have been a scream --

Mrs. Everard's head exploded.

In the welter of gore, Jenny saw a thousand little wriggling slugs fall to the floor. They made a soft patter, like rain but heavier, and as Mrs. Everard's body fell she heard the jiang shi utter a despairing wail.

Kathleen went to her. Without a glance to the ruined corpse, she knelt beside the jiang shi, who huddled in desolation, and pressed a gentle hand to the monster's back.

"You'll get it right," whispered Kathleen. "Next time, you'll get it right." She caressed the jiang shi, gently, reassuringly. "It went better than the others."

Jenny thought of the other women who had come, and wondered what could be worse, and then she decided not to.

The jiang shi's voice, when it came, was thin and small, and redolent with despair. "Is there not even one more?" it said. "I could try again…"

Kathleen's eyes rose, and met Jenny's through the window in the door.

Jenny took a deep breath, and held it. Kathleen's gaze locked on hers for a long moment. The girl's face showed no reaction. Jenny met her eyes, and pleaded silently as best she could. _Spare me,_ she thought. _You've done it before, you have, you --_ and Kathleen looked softer for a moment, but then her face hardened, and she smiled. _No_ , Jenny thought. _Oh, no, no --_

"She's holding her breath, milady," said Kathleen. "I'll go and get her for you."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SOME OF OUR MORE IMAGINATIVE READERS INFORM US that the events of the past few days -- the grisly deaths, the tragic fire, the flying carriage that caused the egregious delays on the Metropolitan and District Railway -- are attributable to the fevered pursuit of a Chinese vampire, known in its native land as a jiang shi, by the adventuress detective Madame Vastra. These readers, whose persistent letters are beginning to become tiresome, claim that this is but one of many times Madame Vastra's unravelling of a mystery has saved all of an unknowing London.
> 
> We advise these peculiar devotees that we have yet again sought an audience with Madame Vastra, who, as ever, politely declines comment on any of the wilder rumors in circulation, but wishes it known that any unusual cases requiring investigation may be brought to her attention care of this newspaper.

In the course of her association with Madame Vastra, Jenny had learned that one should never be early to presume that one was in a bad situation. Very often, some small detail would have escaped notice, or some new development would come to light, or Madame would come up with a remarkable bit of clever talk. It was best, when things looked their darkest, to use a moment to take stock.

Jenny was locked in a small laboratory, where she was the prisoner of a titled noblewoman who was secretly a jiang shi, which was what the Chinese called their hopping vampires but which was really an alien slug riding in the noblewoman's skull. It had just murdered eight women in what Jenny supposed were attempts to fill their heads with more alien slugs. As far as Jenny could tell these efforts had been entire failures and at best had caused the would-be victims' heads to explode. Jenny was likely to meet a similar fate when the jiang shi and its loyal maid Kathleen made their way through the door. Even so, Jenny most sincerely hoped they did not stop trying to make their way to her. If they did they would probably notice that the late Mrs. Everard had wedged a chair against the hall closet door, at which point they would likely open the closet and discover Madame, unconscious and helpless.

Also, the house was surrounded by police who were likely at any moment to burst in shooting.

 _This is bad,_ Jenny thought, _this is bad and could not be worse_ , and then she saw that Kathleen was coming with an axe.

"I'd thought you'd get the key," the jiang shi said.

"Expect she's shot the bolt by now, milady," said Kathleen. Jenny looked. There was a bolt on the door. She shot it.

Kathleen and the jiang shi exchanged a look. "Ah well," Kathleen said. "Not a problem for long."

The jiang shi said, "I could just --" and raised a hand, power evident in its clumsy, crippled fingers.

"I said I'd get her for you, milady," said Kathleen softly. "Let me get her for you."

The jiang shi's hideous grin widened. Kathleen shouldered the axe, and swung.

Chips of wood exploded from the inside of the door. Kathleen was not much larger than Jenny, but she had a stronger frame and good arms. The door was sturdy, but would not last for long. Already, the edge of the axe came into view, then disappeared again. Behind Jenny, the window beckoned; but then she glanced at the door again and saw, through the little window, the chair lodged in front of the closet door. If she escaped, they would find Madame. If she could delay them --

With a crunch, the chunk of the door that held the lock and bolt fell away. Kathleen pushed the door open and stepped in with her axe. This is it, then, thought Jenny, and drew her sword.

A long-nailed hand fell on Kathleen's shoulder. "It's all right, my dear," said the jiang shi. "You've done well. So well. I'll not have you risk yourself. I need you. Don't you see?" Its sharp nails stroked Kathleen's skin. "You're too important to me." The girl hesitantly lowered the axe and backed away. The jiang shi leered at her, then turned to Jenny.

"My mistakes have stopped splashing about below," said the jiang shi. "Did you kill them?" It flexed its long, bony fingers. "You'll find me more a challenge. Shall I show you?"

Jenny's mouth was dry. She swallowed to find some spit, and said, "Show me, then."

The jiang shi moved.

In the fraction of a second before it reached her, Jenny understood: the lurching, crippled gait hadn't been striving to move; the strain was in the holding back. In one spring, the jiang shi had crossed the laboratory and was beside her. Then it flashed away again, to the wall, rebounding off of it and up to the top corner of the room, the plaster and laths crunching beneath the jiang shi's grip as it clung to the ceiling like a spider. Jenny felt a dizziness, and a slow trickle on her neck where the jiang shi's nails had brushed her. She raised a hand to the place. When she glanced at her fingertips, she saw them wet with blood.

The cut was small and shallow, but Jenny's head was swimming out of all proportion. She found herself thinking _jiang shi, jiang shi_ , over and over, and didn't understand why until a moment later she thought, _psychic energy_ , and _with a touch, it feeds_. She saw the jiang shi, and Kathleen; she should be fighting them, Jenny knew, but she wasn't sure which one she should strike at first, or why. She slumped against the laboratory's high workbench. A flame was dancing on a burner there, and Jenny watched it. She felt as if she could watch it forever.

A slow, triumpant hiss came from the ceiling. Jenny looked toward it, and saw the jiang shi's cruel face, its blind and useless eyes. Even in her weakened state, Jenny knew: she could never hope to defeat it. If she could just hold it, keep it away, perhaps she could save Madame --

A loud thump sounded against the inside of the closet door. Then another.

"What is it, milady?" said Kathleen. Her head turned toward the closet. So did the jiang shi's. Then it let go with its toes and pushed off, landing heavily on its feet near Jenny as it turned toward the door.

The jiang shi said, "Bring the axe."

Jenny's legs would not allow her to stand. It was all she could do to hold the sword, but she tightened her grip on it, and swung. Beyond the lit burner was the pipe for the gas line. The pipe cleaved easily in two. As the burner faded, Jenny batted it with the sword, sending the dying flame into the venting gas.

A great gout of flame spewed from the wall. Jenny reeled back, falling heavily to the floor. For a wild moment she thought, I am burning, but she wasn't; the heat had toasted her skin and singed her hair, and ignited half the workbench and caught the wall on fire, but Jenny had leapt away in time. She could only hope that the jiang shi had not. She heard a hand on a gas valve, and hoped it was Madame, but when the torrent of flame died down she saw that it was Kathleen. The walls and ceiling burned, and the smoke was choking. "Milady?" called Kathleen frantically. "Milady?"

The jiang shi was still standing. Parts of its dress were embers, and the side of its head was charred and blackened. It seemed not to feel any pain. As the jiang shi turned to smile at Kathleen, Jenny saw that it was missing an ear. The room was blazing.

Another loud kick sounded against the closet door. Then another. At the third, the closet door shattered, and the chair fell over. Kicking the chair aside, Madame stepped out into the corridor, her face bare and unhidden, her swords unsheathed.

"Hello," said Madame. "I'm Madame Vastra." Her gaze turned toward the jiang shi. "Lady Carrington, I presume."

"Better kill her quick, ma'am," said Jenny. "I just set the house on fire."

The jiang shi sprang.

Jenny pushed herself up from the floor and lurched into the fray after it. Then Kathleen was on her and screaming. There was no art to the charge; it was all fury, and as Jenny grappled with the girl she could see Madame and the jiang shi circling each other, Madame swinging and the jiang shi dodging, leaping away, flashing in to strike, Madame diving to the side and rolling away. Then Jenny couldn't pay attention any more because Kathleen was on her and her nails were going for Jenny's eyes. Jenny grabbed the girl's thumbs and twisted, then struck with her forehead, and missed Kathleen's nose but landed hard on the cheek. Kathleen fell back, scrambling for her axe, and swung it; Jenny rolled aside just in time, and the axe sank inches deep into the wood.

Kathleen tried to pull the axe free of the floor. It didn't move.

"Kathleen, don't," Jenny said. Her voice should have sounded strong, defiant, warning. It didn't. It sounded sad and tired. "I've trained and you haven't. You don't know one end of that from the other. I'll kill you."

"I don't care," said Kathleen. Her eyes were shining. "You came here to hurt milady."

"She's not your lady!" snapped Jenny. "She's not! One of those slugs, that's what she is, only she's in your lady's head. She's a monster, she's lying!"

"She's not lying!" Kathleen wrenched the axe free and swung it wildly. Jenny didn't bother to parry; she backed away, away. In the hallway, Madame and the jiang shi were doing battle. The flames had spread quickly; as Jenny watched, the glass-fronted cabinet went up in flames. Through the front windows, she saw that the fire had caught the attention of the drivers, who were racing toward the house.

The lead driver reached into his coat and drew a revolver. "Right, you anarchists!" he bellowed. "This is the police!" He kicked the door twice, in a vain effort to open it. When that proved ineffective, he broke out a pane of glass with his gun and opened fire.

Jenny said something very unrefined, and then leapt back as Kathleen hacked at her again.

Bullets buzzed through the open space. Two went into the jiang shi. It didn't flinch, but reached for Madame, and grasped her forearm, and squeezed. Even over the fire, Jenny heard the sudden snap. The jiang shi didn't let go; it held tighter, and pushed Madame back against the burning wall, and forced Madame's broken arm into the fire.

Kathleen was in Jenny's way. Jenny hooked a chair with her sword, whirled it into her hand, and smashed it as hard as she could against Kathleen's shoulder. The girl reeled, falling back and slumping against the worktable as Madame, limp, was flung through the doorway, her face bloody and her arm aflame. Jenny flew to Madame's side, smothered the flames, and turned Madame face-up so she could breathe. The smoke was thicker and thicker. It was hard to see the jiang shi lurching toward them amid the flame.

"Madame?" said Jenny tearfully.

Weakly, Madame opened her mouth. The venom barb, Jenny saw, was still small; it had been less than a full twenty-four hours since Madame had used it. Nor had it worked against the jiang shi's weaker offspring when it was large and fresh. It was all they had.

Jenny put her arms around Madame and held her tightly as Madame propped herself up with her good arm.

"Poison?" said the jiang shi. "It cannot harm me."

Sadness passed over Madame's face. "Yes," she said, "I know."

Her tongue flashed, and the jiang shi uttered a cry of horror.

Kathleen's mouth fell open. Fumbling, she reached for her shoulder. After a few clumsy attempts, she found a grip on Madame's venom barb and plucked it free. She held the barb in front of her eyes uncomprehendingly, then dropped it and fell to her knees as the poison coursed through her.

The jiang shi issued a long, drawn-out rattle. It lurched to Kathleen's side and bent over her, then wheeled on Madame. "What have you done?!"

"Nothing lasting," said Madame, "if you treat her quickly. I know what I'd do." She fixed her gaze on the jiang shi. Beneath the steel, Jenny saw the scientist's curiosity. "What will you?"

The jiang shi lurched toward Madame. Then it turned back as Kathleen gasped in agony.

"You don't love her," said Madame. Her face was drawn with pain. "That's clear enough. I don't think you can. But she's all one little slug has in this great big mammals' world. The only one of them you can trust, the one who cares for your every need -- is it just that she helps you lay your traps in safety? Or is there something else?"

The jiang shi hissed with anger.

On the floor, Kathleen writhed, and sobbed, " _Milady--_ "

The front door still held. The majority of the police were rushing it in a body; when that proved ineffective, they split into parties and began to move about the house looking for another entrance. One or two had taken positions by the windows and were firing on anything they thought they saw moving within. The jiang shi left Kathleen on the floor and turned toward Madame. Jenny feebly waved the sword, but the jiang shi caught the blade in the palm of its left hand and held it, not reacting at all to the edge.

The jiang shi put its other hand on Madame's face, and turned Madame's head so they looked into each other's eyes. Madame weakened visibly at the touch. Her eyelids fluttered, and the jiang shi's face came close to hers, and its lips parted --

The jiang shi whispered, " _Burn_ ," and snatched up Kathleen and leapt through the window with her in its arms.

As the shards of glass fell around her, Jenny made no conscious decision to lower the sword; it was simply that her arms had suddenly realized it was heavy, and so the point dropped to the floor with a thunk.

"We have to chase after her," mumbled Jenny thickly.

Madame said, "Yes, let's get on with that," and promptly slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Jenny felt a moment of pure panic: the house was surrounded, the police were even now coming over the wall at the back, the house was on fire, there was no escape.

Then, from nowhere, the thought came to her: _the jiang shi threw its failures in the sewer._

There was an entrance to the sewer.

All Jenny had to do was find it.

Jenny had flown through time, fought monsters, and faced the worst of London. The next few minutes would rank as some of the most terrifying of her life. There was no fighting -- Jenny had always rather liked the fighting -- only survival: the dragging Madame through the burning house, the ducking as the gunshots came from outside, the choking smoke, the gasping for breath, the terror that the jiang shi would return and strike at any moment, all of it an endless exercise in fear until she found herself trudging along, one of Madame's limp arms over her shoulders, making her lost way deeper and deeper into a sewer she had no memory of ever entering.

Above them, the house burned and fell to pieces.

* * *

Step. Step. Slosh. Step.

Jenny had no idea how long she had been walking.

Filth rose around her ankles and seeped into her shoes, and the stuff too foul to call water rose halfway to her knees. Her sword, thrust awkwardly through the belt of her apron, rapped occasionally at her legs, but she hardly felt it. All her thought was on her right arm, which was supporting Madame, who had fallen unconscious again.

A metal grating came into view overhead. Jenny propped Madame up against the wall, then stretched up as best she could. The grating was too heavy for Jenny to move alone. She stumbled, sloshing back into the filth before catching herself against the opposite wall. Jenny had fared no better at the abandoned house they had used as their base earlier; the grating there had been far too high overhead for her to reach, and so she had kept moving. But now they were even deeper into the sewers than they had been when Madame had fought the Secret and Ineffable Order of Rat-Catchers, and if not for the street urchin they had rescued they might never have escaped the sewers then.

Jenny sagged against the slimy brick. The dim light through the grating let her see Madame's face. It was slack and unmoving, and only the slow, shallow breaths gave evidence that Madame was still alive.

"Ma'am?" said Jenny. "Please wake up."

Madame did not move. The ugly cut in her forehead trickled red, and Jenny could not bear to look at Madame's arm. She felt an ugly swirling of despair. They were lost, the jiang shi was gone, Madame was badly hurt and maybe even dying. This was not her place, Jenny thought. She knew how to clean a house and how to swing a sword and detect, a little, but she did not know how to recover from a defeat. If Madame were awake, she would know. Madame could teach her.

 _What does Madame do when she teaches you?_

The thought caught Jenny by surprise, as if someone else had spoken in her head. She remembered Madame buttoning up her waders, telling Jenny to play who-is-what with an empty house, to use a servant's eye. She has me use what I know.

 _Ah,_ said Jenny's other voice, _but what do you know?_ I know how to serve in a house and clean up messes, thought Jenny. _This is a mess,_ said the other voice. _How do you clean it?_

Jenny knew how to clean a large mess. You could not do everything at once, so you put small tasks in order, and did each in turn; you got out of the sewers, then got help for Madame, then found the jiang shi. But she could not get out of the sewers. Madame could have, because Madame could do anything, Madame was brilliant, and Madame had her devices, Silurian wonders that could do things that Jenny had never dreamed.

It was a ray of hope. Perhaps Madame had something on her person. A magic compass that pointed home, or a self-writing book that would tell Jenny what to do.

Jenny sloshed through the filth to Madame's side. As gently as she could, she ran her hands over Madame's body and into her pockets. The self-writing book was there, but it was in Silurian at the moment and Jenny barely knew how to work it anyway. Madame had a pen, too; it had a rolling ball for a point and the nib retracted when you pressed the end. These wonders did Jenny no good. The only pocket remaining was the one into which Madame had jammed her wounded arm's hand, as a makeshift sling. Jenny bit her lip, and put a hand on the inside of Madame's elbow, above the burned and blackened flesh and what she hoped was not a splintered end of bone. She put another hand on the wrist and pulled as gently as she could. Madame moaned faintly as the hand came free. "I'm sorry," whispered Jenny. "I'm sorry."

Then she saw what was cupped in Madame's hand, and caught her breath.

The device was a narrow cylinder, bright steel, with several indentations giving glimpses of a darker, deeper layer which was in turn etched with shining blue lines, as if something were glowing within. There was a button at one end, and Madame's thumb was poised over it. The button looked like frosted glass, and Jenny thought there was a light behind it, but the light was not lit.

Jenny had no idea what sort of device it was. For all she knew, if she touched the button it would explode and kill them both. She reached out for it anyway. As she took it in her hand, the cylinder collapsed around itself and sealed. The button disappeared. Jenny shook the cylinder, but nothing happened. She tapped it against the wall. There was no response. It had shut itself away at the slightest touch of Jenny's hand. No, she thought. A human hand. Madame was the only waking Silurian. This device was meant for Madame alone.

Cautiously, Jenny fitted the device back into Madame's hand. When the cylinder expanded again, she used Madame's thumb to depress the button. The button began to flash with a blue-white light.

Nothing else happened.

Defeated, Jenny slumped into the muck beside Madame. She leaned her head against the wall, and took Madame's uninjured hand in her own, and squeezed, and only realized she was very tired the moment before she fell asleep. In her dreams, she heard the sloshing of legs through the foul river, and felt cool hands upon her; when the hands brushed her neck, she sank deeper into sleep and all of her dreams slipped away.

* * *

When Jenny awoke, her first thought was, it is still daylight, and her second was, but there are no windows.

Jenny sat bolt upright. She was in a narrow bed in a small, white room, the walls and ceiling of which were glowing gently. Her clothes were gone. She was wearing a strange garment, cut something like a slip; her skin was clean, and there was no smell of filth about her. The bedsheets, like her slip, were smooth and fine, and when she eased herself out of bed the floor was warm against her bare feet.

Jenny looked for her sword, but did not see it. Nor did she see her clothing. There were light garments, neatly folded, upon what might have been a chair, and flowing robes hung in a small transparent wardrobe. Jenny had never seen the clothes' like before, but it seemed obvious enough that the light garments went on first, and the robes went on over them; she had helped Madame to dress in a kimono during what Madame had cheerfully dubbed the adventure of the ghostly geisha, so the robes proved little trouble. There were fine boots, too, and they fit Jenny's feet as if molded for them.

The hallway outside the room was narrow, and turned immediately into another, wider corridor. As Jenny ventured forth, she saw a wall made up of panels of the clearest glass she had ever seen. Behind the glass was what looked less like a doctor's office than a laboratory, and in it was Madame, unconscious, in a tank, where she was suspended in what looked like a clear jelly. Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing. She was not connected to any tubing; as far as Jenny could tell, Madame was breathing the jelly. There was a tall, slender Silurian dressed all in white next to the tank. She held a placard in one hand, and a small device in the other, and she was looking at Madame.

The tall Silurian reached into the jelly with the hand that held the device. There was a soft blue flash and Madame's face twitched. The tall Silurian seemed pleased; she nodded, and tucked the device away, and tapped at the placard with her fingertips. When the tall Silurian noticed Jenny watching, she glared, and touched something on the placard, and the glass walls became opaque.

Jenny backed away from the glass wall until she came up against the worked stone opposite, and then she stumbled away so she would not have to look at the blank wall any more.

It was only much later that she realized she had left the narrow cavern for a great one, and that she was sitting on a little bench that rested against a parapet at the edge of a wide ledge. Above and below her, if she craned her neck to see, small carriages flew from one side of the great cavern to the next. Most of them flew without guidance, but a few had drivers, and they were Silurians. She saw Silurian forms in the other caverns, and glimpsed a Silurian in a carved window, and felt her world shudder and go wrong. This was not possible, Jenny thought. There were no Silurians, not waking ones. Torchwood had seen to it. _Madame_ had seen to it.

Madame had lied to her.

A sound nearby caught Jenny's attention. Two more Silurians were walking toward Jenny, arm-in-arm. They bumped heads, and the little rubs and nudges of the bony frills were movements that Jenny knew were more than merely affectionate. Madame had not been thinking one evening and had bruised Jenny very badly before apologizing and awkwardly explaining the significance.

Then Jenny caught her breath. The Silurians were both women.

The knowledge dawned on Jenny like a revelation: it was possible here, they could walk hand in hand, they didn't have to hide. The delight was impossible to not express, and she beamed openly at them as they went past.

One of the Silurian women hissed, " _Mammal._ "

Then they were gone. And Jenny thought, yes, of course, there's always something.

There was no safe place anywhere. She had always known that, but there was something painful in every reminder that it was true. She found she hated the insulting woman, and her silent, abetting partner. She understood their hatred, and their reasons for it, and she hated them back all the same. It was a strange thought, that one could understand another's hatred and yet return it. Could she hate every other Silurian who thought as they did, no matter if she, in their place, might have felt the same?

Yes, Jenny thought, with a growing disquiet, yes she could.

Jenny decided that meant that war between the humans and the Silurians was probably inevitable, after all. She prayed she would be dead by then.

Madame's voice said, "Silurian dress suits you."

Madame was standing by the entrance of a narrow tunnel just opposite Jenny's bench. She looked elegant herself, Jenny had to admit. Serene, and almost regal. Her burned and broken arm was not bandaged or splinted as Jenny would have known it, but was wrapped in what looked like a smooth white clay, and as Jenny watched the fingers of the broken arm moved with ease and no discomfort. When Madame pulled up her robes and sat next to Jenny on the little bench, the whisper of the fabric was like none Jenny had ever heard. I am not just a mammal, thought Jenny, I am a savage.

They sat silently beside one another for some time. Jenny did not say anything. Madame opened her mouth, and then closed it. In the great cavern, a flying carriage passed along, and then another.

Madame said, "I suppose this means you'll have to kill me in my sleep," and saw the look on Jenny's face, and uncharacteristically added, "Sorry."

"Don't say that."

"I said, 'I'm sorry.'"

"And I said, ' _Don't say that._ ' Because you're not, are you? You're not sorry at all."

Madame said nothing.

Jenny said, "Are you their queen?"

"Their jailor. If I am their anything."

"So why didn't they kill you?"

"Because they fear the mammals. And they need me, for they know my plan."

"Plan?" There was a plan. Jenny's voice sounded strange and far-off to her own ears.

"We won't overthrow the mammals, Jenny," said Madame. "We'll help them. We'll nudge their development along, offer secret consultations to a few properly-placed scientists, and before they know it, the human race will be dependent on petroleum. Which, unlike coal, we can tap and drain completely from below, removing it from their reach and into our control, making the humans dependent on it dependent upon us. With our funds from the trade we shall buy great lands upon the surface of the earth, enough for a surface nation of our own, and with our technology and the power we shall amass none can deny it from us. And the mammals will not know to stop us, until it is far too late for them to try." Madame smiled thinly. "You're a mammal," she said. "What do you think? Is that cunning and treacherous enough?"

It was not the plan so much that turned Jenny's stomach as that Madame felt the need for it. "You don't think you'll get justice."

"Justice," said Madame, as Jenny's old mistress might have said "happiness" or "leisure." "Justice is something one must be given. Power is something one can _possess_. In two hundred million years, Jenny, only one thing never changes: you can never count on anyone to give you anything, unless they know that you can take it." Her lips turned up at the corners, and her voice was light, but Jenny knew a mask for bitterness when she heard it. "I'm rich, Jenny; when you're rich, you understand these things."

"Well, I'm poor, ma'am," said Jenny, "and I believe in justice. If you still think that counts for anything."

Madame laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. "A poor woman in a primitive society, born into drudgery, and you believe in justice?"

"I know you, don't I?"

Madame was silent for a long time.

"Look at the justice I have given my own people, Jenny," Madame said softly. "I took the best and bravest among them, and killed them. I condemned their cleverest surviving leaders to a frozen sleep. I woke a few and set them to my will, out of sight of sky and sun, to toil away and hate me for it while hiding like little slugs in the great skull of the world. It is not what we are, but it is what we must be while the mammals rule the earth."

She said "mammals" with such bitterness. Jenny bit her lip.

"Except for me, of course," added Madame. "I get to live above, in a comfortable dwelling, with a pretty mammal to tend my house and pour my gin." She brushed her fingers above the white clay surrounding her wounded arm. "Yes, Jenny. Look at me. See how I share justice with my people."

"And what am I to do," said Jenny, "for the power of mine?" Madame did not answer. "Go to Torchwood? Tell them? Or am I supposed to look at this, see the fear on one side and the hate on the other, see it building up, and stay silent and let it? Just on the chance that your plan works? That it works peacefully? That it doesn't turn into rivers of blood and the extinction of your race or mine?" Jenny felt her voice shake. "And I have to," she said, despairing. "I have to. Because I know you, and you made me _hope._ "

The Silurians were watching them, Jenny realized. She saw faces peering from the narrow corridors, from the halls too large for their meager numbers.

"If anyone finds out they'll kill them," said Jenny. Her voice was flat. "All of them. And you. And probably me."

"Yes."

"Then when we've stopped Lady Carrington, should we come back to stay?"

Madame turned her eyes to her in astonishment. Jenny stumbled on, getting the words out before she could second-guess herself. "They wouldn't find us, it's hidden, they wouldn't know. And it's not your real home, ma'am, I know it's not, but it's something, and you wouldn't have humans everywhere, you don't like how we smell, you always say so, and you can eat what you want and you wouldn't have to hide --"

"And you?"

Jenny said, "Whither thou goest, ma'am."

Madame smiled. "If I recall correctly," she said, "that offer ends, 'and thy God, my God.' I would not ask that of you."

Peter had denied Him; Jenny could not. "Wouldn't ask it of you either, ma'am."

"Yes, you would," said Madame. "But I am grateful that you do not."

One day, thought Jenny, one day I will say _I love you, ma'am_ , and I might even hear you say it back if I can only stop from just saying it myself, over and over again.

"I have yet too much to do above," said Madame. "And in the meantime, we have a jiang shi to catch. Let us begin."

"Begin where, ma'am?"

"Deduction. We must use what we know to determine where Lady Carrington will be." Madame reached with her uninjured hand into a pocket of her robe, and brought out the hollow meteorite Jenny had found in Lady Carrington's laboratory. "We've been too long; it's evening, and she'll have found her bearings. She'll be preparing to strike." Madame tossed the meteorite to Jenny. "One of my sisters here is an exolinguist. She found this in your clothing, and decoded the alien script -- two of them, actually; the same message repeats in several galactic languages. Would you care to guess what it says?"

"Prob'ly, 'if you open this, you're an idiot,' or something like it, ma'am."

"Close enough. It's a warning, not only about what's inside, but the penalties for opening. This isn't a meteorite, Jenny; it's a prison. A prison for a vile, detested little slug, condemned for riding hosts without consent, jettisoned to spiral forever in despair among the stars, alone."

"She must have been in there a long time, ma'am."

"A very long time."

Jenny said, "So if she didn't have any company, where are all the little slugs coming from?"

"Eh?" said Madame. "Oh, there are species that reproduce using parthenogenesis. I could do it myself, in a pinch." She frowned. "Not many intracranial parasites that do, though, and based on my reading of those there are only one or two that -- " she broke off, and stared into the distance for a moment, and then leaned over and kissed Jenny warmly. "Oh, my dear," she said, as she leapt to her feet. "Jenny, you are a conductor of light!"

Jenny was too surprised by the kiss to stay seated when Madame tugged her hand.

They raced through the dimly-lit tunnels toward the embarking point for the flying carriages. Madame could see better in the gloom than Jenny could, and Jenny stumbled as she did her best to keep up, but Madame was talking too fast and excitedly to pay heed. "She's spawning. Parthenogenesis. Except she's held back, she's fought the urge, so what happens when she tries? It's uncontrollable. She releases too many baby slugs at once, they fight for territory and kill the host in the process. Now, that's useless as a survival adaptation, it's not normal. It's pathological. The need is still on her. She'll try to spawn again, and quickly. But she's tried one person, failed, small groups, failed; no, she needs a crowd, and where will she find one?" Madame stopped in her tracks and wheeled on Jenny. Her scaled face was alive with excitement. "One where she can fit into the midst, won't be disturbed until the ideal moment, a crowd where even a jiang shi can move unseen. Everything you've told me, everything we've seen! You know my methods; apply them!"

Jenny had no idea, and opened her mouth to say so, but then she remembered --

 _\-- the letters from Lady Carrington's husband and sons on the hall table, unopened --  
\-- one envelope, edged in gilt, torn and the contents removed --  
\-- why? what would a jiang shi find interesting? --  
\-- a chance to murder --  
\-- an invitation --  
\-- the man at the paper shop said, gilt edging for Madame Le Clerc --  
\-- Mrs. Everard had laughed at Madame, and said she wouldn't see anything like her at --_

Jenny said, "Madame Le Clerc's masquerade."

* * *

Until meeting Madame, Jenny had never flown in all her life before.

Since then, of course, she had been carried aloft on any number of occasions -- by old Mr. Jackson Lake's latest balloon, by a time machine disguised as a police box, and even once by a friendly but horribly nearsighted pterodactyl -- but she had never flown in control of the flying apparatus, or on a flying machine of Silurian manufacture, or through the London Underground with a train belching black smoke only a scant few lengths behind.

The Silurian craft was not difficult to fly, which was perhaps why on reaching the Underground tunnels Madame had snapped "Here!" and shoved the control stick at Jenny. As Jenny flew, Madame had proceeded to spend several minutes cursing and consulting a postcard-sized scrap of blue glass that, to Jenny's surprise, had turned out to be a self-writing map of London. Ordinarily, Jenny would have enjoyed her stint as a pilot; but the presence of the train, and its goggle-eyed engineer, was rather disconcerting, especially as the train was gaining.

"Ma'am?" said Jenny.

"Left," said Madame absently.

"What?"

"Left!"

The mouth of the tunnel gaped into a wider space before Madame had finished speaking, and Jenny flung her weight against the control lever. The craft responded quickly; it turned nothing like a wagon, but sheared directly to the side even while continuing its forward rush. They slipped aside just as the train would have overtaken them. The front of the train clipped the rear of the Silurian craft, sending it spinning toward a wall. Jenny shrieked, but Madame yanked at the controls, and the craft went straight up, narrowly sailing through overhanging steel girders that braced the walls to either side. The craft flew up, and up, and up. The train, its brakes grinding frantically, passed beneath them; the craft's undercarriage kept the worst of the heat from reaching them, but there was no escaping the smoke and cinders. The ill-fitting Silurian battle mask helped, some, but still Jenny shut her eyes tight and held her breath until the worst of it had gone away.

When she felt quite herself again, the Silurian craft had stopped. It was wobbling gently in mid-air next to a roof, and Madame was tying a rope between its railing and a nearby chimney, as if the craft were a horse. "Ma'am?" said Jenny. "What -- what?!"

"24 Leinster Gardens," Madame said. "It's a facade of a house. Used for venting from the Underground." She reached for her swords, and tucked them into her belt. "And it's quite convenient to Madame Le Clerc's, once we get down to the street."

Jenny had her doubts about that last part, until they found a convenient drainpipe. Madame Le Clerc's grand home proved to be only a few streets away. Madame strode quickly, and Jenny, with her shorter legs, hurried after. The Silurian robes flapped around Jenny's ankles. One hand was on her sword hilt, to keep it steady; the other held in place the battle mask, which while perfectly formed to clasp Silurian features was but a clumsy fit upon a human face. They got curious looks from passers-by, but not many; the costumes might be unusual, but the neighbors would know that a masquerade was about, and Madame's battle mask and hood hid her less human features.

"How do we stop her, ma'am?" said Jenny. "She's fast, she's strong --"

"And I," said Madame, patting a pouch on her belt with one hand, "acquired something more than a change of clothes while we were below." Jenny glanced at the pouch curiously, but Madame made no move to open it. "There it is," she said, nodding at a house. "Straight in, no stopping, we find her, we kill her. The masks should buy us some safety from the slugs. Are you ready?"

The mask had been sealed to Jenny's face with an expanding foam that, not being designed for mammalian skin, not only itched but also peeled away wherever Jenny broke out in a sweat. Jenny was not about to let that stop her. "As ever, ma'am." She gripped her sword tightly.

Madame strode up the steps, flung open the door, and stopped dead in her tracks. Jenny, close behind, bumped hard into her, and then saw what Madame had seen.

The great hall was full of hopping, twisted figures. Clumsily, they shambled across the room, their limbs moving in jerks and jolts. Their spines were bent, their fingers twisted, their legs pigeon-toed.

Jenny froze in numb horror.

"Oh, by your murdered god," said Madame. "We have come too late."

The nearest lolling head jerked round to turn its gaze on them.

Jenny began to back away, but the door had swung closed behind them. Could she reach the knob in time? No, the new jiang shi was drawing closer. It was not Lady Carrington, she thought; its garb was fine, and though it wore a mask and its face was painted, she could see it had both its ears. Jenny and Madame exchanged a look, then drew their swords.

"Eek!" said the new jiang shi. It leapt back, and then laughed merrily. Unlike Lady Carrington's, its voice was cheerful, and fully human. "How marvelous! What are you?"

Jenny's mouth fell open in surprise and she stammered; Madame was caught off-guard for a bare moment. "Justice and Hope," said Madame smoothly. "It's allegorical."

"Oh," said the new jiang shi, sounding puzzled. There was no time for further discussion: the door behind Jenny had opened and another woman was pushing through. The new arrival was moving perfectly normally, and she walked up to the twisted form as if it were a friend. "Whatever is everyone doing?" said the woman.

"It is a celebratory gait," said the twisted little figure. "Lady Carrington says it is now quite the fashion in Paris."

"Really?" said the newcomer, surprised. "You must show me."

As the two of them bent over in hideous mimicry, Madame grasped Jenny's arm and drew her away. "We must find Lady Carrington," Madame said. "If we dally too long, she will find her nerve and strike."

"Why hasn't she, yet?"

"Because she's afraid to," Madame said. Her voice, surprisingly, was compassionate. "That's the trouble with last chances. If they fail, no hope is left to you." She squeezed Jenny's arm. "Sometimes hope is better." Jenny looked up at her, but Madame had already turned away and was scanning the crowd again. "We must separate her from the crowd. But how can we find her in this mob?"

Jenny took a moment to consider, and then sheathed her sword and made her way down the few stairs toward the newcomer and Lady Carrington's imitator. As she approached them, the imitator was chiding the newcomer for being insufficiently pigeon-toed. Next to them, a small knot of finely-dressed women and their husbands were watching with unease, clearly uncomfortable joining the parade of jiang shis but just as clearly worried of the risk of being outside the latest sensation. Jenny felt a grin coming on, and did her best to dampen it before she realized she was wearing a mask and they wouldn't see it anyway.

Jenny came to a dead halt next to the would-be jiang shis and stared at them. "What on earth are you doing?" she said. "That's the silliest thing I've ever seen."

The two women looked up at her. The newcomer seemed slightly alarmed, but Lady Carrington's imitator lolled her head over in a jiang-shi-ish huff. "It is very fashionable in Paris," the imitator said.

"Looks ridiculous," said Jenny. "Like you're mocking some poor unfortunate. Where'd you get the idea this was fashionable?" In the corner of her eye, she could see the tense group next to her beginning to stir with interest.

"Lady Carrington said --" began the imitator, but Jenny cut her off. "Lady Carrington?" said Jenny in well-simulated disbelief. "You haven't heard?"

"Heard what?"

"Her house burned to the ground today! She wouldn't have come to a masquerade --" Jenny let her voice trail off, then clasped a hand over her mouth as if to stifle a giggle. "Oh, my! You didn't see her face, did you?" The newcomer was straightening up already, and looking increasingly alarmed. "You've been had! Oh, this is rich! What a joke, how silly you lot look! I wouldn't have missed this -- look at you, shuffling about -- oh, don't stop, go on, it's too funny!" The words came out through a fit of giggles, and as Jenny broke and laughed in their faces, the crowd next to her eagerly joined in.

The newcomer paled and dashed away. Her friend, straightening, gathered her dress up in one hand and took after her. The laughter was redoubling now, and moving outward like a wave; across the room, grotesquely twisted, shuffling forms stood up straight and walked normally, trying desperately to pretend they hadn't been doing anything foolish at all. The few outliers eagerly seized the moment for mockery, and the laughter grew and grew.

Jenny turned and looked for Madame, who was still atop the stairs and had a view of the room. Madame inclined her head. Jenny was too short to see, so she made her way up the steps just in time to glimpse a twisted, hopping form exiting the room, followed by gales of laughter.

Madame said, "We have to chase after her."

"Yes," said Jenny. "Let's get on with that."

She grinned at Madame, and thought Madame grinned back, but with the masks it was hard to tell.

* * *

Madame Le Clerc's garden, Madame Vastra had said, was famous, and Jenny supposed it was certainly big enough to be. She had never learned much of plants, herself, and had liked them less ever since she and Madame had faced down Professor Berglas's ambulatory orchids, but Madame Le Clerc's garden was spacious, and beautiful, and impeccably-arranged.

On the patio, guests ambled about; the fad for imitating the jiang shi evidently had not made it this far. The jiang shi itself was nowhere to be seen. Jenny looked left, looked right, then hissed in frustration. "Ma'am," she said, "how do you hide, when you stand out any time you move?"

Madame said, "You don't move," and pointed. There was a gazebo at the end of the garden, and a dark form was seated in it. The jiang shi's back was turned to the party, and it was watching the skies. Even with the light of London, Jenny could see a few scattered stars.

"Let's cut her down, ma'am," Jenny said.

Madame shook her head, gently, from side to side. "Wait for me a while," she said. "I must have words with her."

Jenny didn't like that, not one bit. "And if she turns on you, ma'am?"

Madame's gaze turned back to the jiang shi, who sat unmoving. "Then we cut her down."

Jenny liked that only a little better.

She followed Madame, but a little behind, and on the next path over. Occasionally, Madame passed out of sight, but the greenery was not thick and Madame always reappeared again. As they neared the gazebo, Jenny drew up short. She placed a hand upon her sword, but did not draw it. Madame did not enter the gazebo, but stood at its entrance, with the jiang shi a few scant feet away.

"It's lovely," said Madame. "Isn't it?" The jiang shi made no reply. "It's enough to make you think back to being very young. In the spring, before the grass came up, so it was all pink rocks under the purple sky, lit by the gas giant by day and the Great Ribbon at night, and you clung to the rocks, and if there was nothing else you ate of your mother's thoughts, because she loved you so."

"Yesssss," hissed the jiang shi, its voice breaking.

Madame said softly, "But you're a very long way from Charonotix Prime, aren't you? In your ill-fitting Lady Carrington suit."

The jiang shi's lolling head swiveled round.

"Oh, I'm from Earth," said Madame calmly. "My race was here before the humans, as a matter of fact. I've never been to your world, though now I've read about it. You must miss your old life; I'm happy and still I miss mine. I will kill you if I have to, but I will give you a chance. I promised an old friend that I would always do that, give a chance, because he gave me mine. And so I give you yours: release Lady Carrington. Spare her, and these others. Let them live, and let them go, and I will help you find another way."

"There is no other way. My time is long upon me. To spawn, I must have sentient flesh."

Madame said, softly, "And your species only has its spawning once, and cannot spawn again."

"I waited. So long. In my prison, I waited, the one hope that I would be released, that I could spawn. They locked me away for my crimes, hoping that I could not wait, that my young would feed on me and on each other, and so my bloodline would reach its end. They wanted it. But I fooled them, I beat them, I wanted my young to live, and so I held on, and I survived!" The jiang shi's voice was fierce with triumph.

"And Lady Carrington?" said Madame. "Did she survive?"

"She is gone and gone, and more than gone. I have shredded her to pulp, to make space inside her skull for me."

"I wondered if you had gotten as far as the motor cortex," said Madame. "Either way, the body must be very difficult to control. Legs are such stumpy, stilty things. So much easier to slide around on your belly. You must wonder how we ever do it."

The jiang shi's laugh was harsh, and short. Madame did not join in it.

"I must kill them all," the jiang shi said. It was neither impassioned nor apologetic; it spoke the words as Jenny might have announced her need to run to the shop later that morning. "I must release my remaining young, and hope that they find purchase. There is no other way for me."

"No," said Madame. "I suppose not." She reached into her small pouch. "But if there's no other way for you, then there's no other way for me, either."

"Yes," said the jiang shi. "There is." It smiled thinly. "Because I ordered Kathleen to prepare for you."

Kathleen stepped from the shadows and raised a revolver.

"Ah," said Madame. She slid her hand, still empty, from the pouch. "Now, where did you get that?"

"One of the policemen stopped us," said the jiang shi. "He won't be needing it anymore."

Kathleen stepped closer. She was pale and stumbling, and her breathing was still hitched, but her hands were steady and strong enough to cock the Webley. "I'll kill her for you, milady," she said. "I don't know what she is, but I'll kill her, and you can be free of your curse, and you'll be better then."

Madame said, "No she won't."

The jiang shi laughed. It was an appalling sound, low and scuttling, like a crab crossing a parquet floor. "Oh, but I will," she said.

"You heard what she said, Kathleen," Madame said. "She's not your mistress. She never was. She doesn't love you. She doesn't need you -- "

"Yes she does!"

"Yes," purred the jiang shi. "I do."

Madame stilled. Then she let a long breath out slowly. "I am a fool. Of course she needs you." She turned to Kathleen, who still pointed the revolver at Madame's head. "You're not her accomplice, Kathleen," said Madame gently. "You're her escape plan." She glanced at the jiang shi. "I'm right, aren't I? Everything you've done has gone wrong. You kill people by feeding, you spawn corpses and failures. Why should Lady Carrington have fared any differently?" Madame's voice was cold. "There's no evolutionary advantage in riding a person when its friends will recognize it as a monster, oh, no. You haven't just torn apart her brain. You're dragging a corpse around that's just this side of rotting."

The jiang shi grinned. "But once I spawn --"

"Yes, once the strain is off you'll fare better. But you'll still need a new host. A living one." Madame looked back at the girl. "And that's you, Kathleen."

The gun trembled in Kathleen's hands. The jiang shi shuffled to its feet, then hopped past Madame and over the rail of the gazebo, until it stood just behind Kathleen. "Milady?" said Kathleen.

"We'll be together," the jiang shi said. "You'll see, Kathleen, it'll be better than before. I feel your thoughts when I feed from you. I know how lonely you have been. No one has ever loved you, not in all your life before. No one has looked at you kindly who did not want to use you, no one has been good to you who did not betray you. Only one."

"Milady."

"She is in me, now. All her thoughts, all her dreams… and all her fondness for you."

"Stop it!" shouted Jenny. Madame's head turned to her, and shook, no, but Jenny couldn't help herself.

"All the thoughts she locked away, all the feelings she repressed, everything she felt kept her from being a good Christian, a good wife, a good woman, everything she wanted, everything she felt, I know it all, and I can feel it too --"

"Stop it!" shouted Jenny again. "Stop lying to her, you're lying, stop it --"

The jiang shi placed a hand on Kathleen's shoulder, and Kathleen gasped softly. The girl's cheeks flushed, and her eyes glazed. "Your lady will live in me," whispered the jiang shi, "and I will live in you --"

Jenny drew her sword and charged.

Kathleen saw her coming. She turned the gun from Madame to Jenny, and Jenny saw down the barrel to the dull shine of lead. The sight seemed to last forever, and as she waited for the gun's hammer to fall she saw the jiang shi's hand on Kathleen's shoulder and wished that she could truly know what Madame felt, just once.

Kathleen pulled the trigger.

There was a sharp clink, and it took Jenny longer than it should have to realize that the gun had not fired because Madame had drawn her sword and swung and the blade had fallen beneath the hammer. Kathleen grasped Madame's wrist, and the jiang shi clutched at Kathleen's shoulder. As Madame reeled, her free hand plunged into her pouch and grasped at something, and suddenly she and Kathleen and the jiang shi were convulsed in a great blue arc of energy. All of them dropped like dolls. Kathleen's fall took her over the gazebo railing and to the hard wooden floor.

Instinctively, Jenny started for Madame's side. Then she checked herself, turned back, and went to the jiang shi.

The jiang shi's fingertips and eyes were twitching, but beyond that it did not move. It looked up at Jenny as she approached. It had killed servants, and old women, and a policeman, and a beggar, and Lady Carrington, and it would have killed a crowd and Jenny and Madame and ridden Kathleen until she grew old and dropped. It was helpless, and its eyes were pleading.

" _Liar_ ," Jenny said, and drove her sword through its skull and into the ground beneath.

She vaulted the gazebo railing and fell to her knees at Madame's side. Madame wore the Silurian mask rarely, but Jenny knew how to remove it readily enough, and tore it away so that Madame might have air. She wrenched off her own mask -- the adhesive foam was well and truly loose, anyway -- and bent her face close to Madame's, raising a hand to touch the green, scaled cheek. "Madame?" she whispered. Was Madame breathing? Yes, shallowly, she thought; she couldn't be sure. She pressed a kiss against Madame's forehead, reached for Madame's hands, and vigorously rubbed the wrists. "Madame!"

Madame's eyelids fluttered. "Apple," Madame said. "Apple metaphysics _dinosaur._ " She struggled to prop herself up. "Dinosaur, dinosaur. Not dinosaur. Head. My head." Jenny placed a hand on Madame's back and helped her rise to a sitting position. "Oh," said Madame, clutching her temple, "so that's what aphasia's like. I don't like it." She winced, then added, "Pins and needles."

"What?"

"My leg. It's gone pins and needles. Help me up."

Jenny put an arm under Madame and helped her to her feet. "What was that device, ma'am?" she said.

"Neural energy stimulator. A Silurian medical tool."

"Silurian medical tools do that?"

"Well, when you disable all the safeties and overload them, yes. Bit of a design flaw."

On the ground, Kathleen was groaning. Jenny bent over the girl. Kathleen was dazed, and one hand showed a slight tremor, but when Jenny took her hand and spoke her name Kathleen looked up. "Milady?" Kathleen said.

Madame looked at Jenny, her face asking the same question. Jenny met Madame's eyes, then shook her head no before nodding in the direction of the body. The jiang shi lay still and unmoving. The spasms that had gripped it were done, and the sword Jenny had thrust into its head still stood upright. Madame's face was impassive. "We'd better stay back," she said.

Jenny blinked. "Ma'am?"

"That body's done now. The connection to whatever psychic energy there was, whatever restraint the jiang shi held, that's severed. And there are a lot of little slugs in there waiting to break free --"

The jiang shi's body made a choked, gargling sound.

"Yes," Madame murmured. "There we go."

Jenny grabbed for her mask, then struggled with a moment's indecision: on whom should she put it, herself or Kathleen? The selfless choice was right, she knew, but she was slightly horrified to find out how little she wanted to make it. But Madame shook her head. "I doubt we'll be needing those," she said. "Look. The air will finish them."

The little slugs poured from the jiang shi's open mouth in an unending stream. There were more of them than Jenny had imagined, more than she could have thought possible. They were slower than the ones she had seen feast on Mrs. Everard, and clumsier; the the pulse from Madame's device must have affected them. They spilled from the jiang shi's lips, and landed on the ground, and writhed, and died. Others came on, surging over their own dead, but they could get no farther. Jenny watched them die, and die, and die.

Kathleen choked, and hid her face. Madame turned her eyes to the girl, and so Jenny was the only one watching when her sword began to wobble, first left, then right.

"Ma'am?" said Jenny. Her voice was hoarse.

The sword wobbled again. And again. Left, right, left, right, left again, and then it fell away, leaving a gaping wound above the staring eyes. As Jenny watched, something moved. Kathleen's covered her mouth with her hand.

The slug that came forth from Lady Carrington's skull was much larger than the ones Jenny had seen before, even the one Madame had carved from the revenant's skull. It squished between the edges of the wound, and squirmed across Lady Carrington's distorted face. She had wounded it, Jenny saw; one of its mandibles was missing, as were several tentacles, and a narrow slash opened and closed as the slug wriggled forward. Through the bloodless slash, Jenny glimpsed a thick fiber that ran to the large beige cylinder of the slug's great brain.

The slug lifted its upper half, waving left to right as best it was able. It tensed, gathering itself for a desperate leap. Then it faltered, and slipped, and fell heavily to the ground. It crawled forward, feebly, through the air that was killing it, over the dead bodies of its children, until its energy was spent and it could go no further. It lay next to the gun and Madame's sword on the wooden floor of the gazebo, twitching faintly, a few feet in front of Kathleen.

Kathleen pushed herself up until she knelt beside the slug. Cautiously, she placed a hand to either side of the slug and bent over it. Jenny could see tears coursing down Kathleen's cheeks.

Then Kathleen put her hand on the gun.

Madame was still leaning heavily against the gazebo. Jenny stepped in front of her and grabbed for Madame's other sword. Kathleen could take the slug up, Jenny realized. She had the gun, she could turn it on them, or on herself --

Kathleen reversed the gun in her hand and brought the butt of it down, again and again, until the slug was nothing but jelly and less than jelly and the tentacles had long stopped twitching, and then Kathleen broke down in helpless sobs.

* * *

A hansom cab took them home. Kathleen, pale and shattered, sat next to Jenny. She did not look up, or speak, not even when the cab pulled up outside of Madame's house, where Mrs. Wong awaited them.

Upstairs, Kathleen undressed compliantly and let Jenny help her into Jenny's spare nightdress. Jenny changed the dressing where Madame's poisoned barb had struck, and poured water into a basin and dampened a cloth so she could clean Kathleen's arms and face. Kathleen's hair was a fright, and Jenny gave it a swift brushing. Kathleen's eyes were closed as Jenny did it, and her face showed something almost like surprise. Surely, Jenny thought, someone must have brushed her hair before. When Jenny tucked Kathleen into Jenny's own bed, the earlier stiffness had gone and Kathleen was almost alarmingly limp. Jenny eased the girl into a position she judged was comfortable; where Jenny put Kathleen's limbs, they stayed.

"Thank you," whispered Kathleen as Jenny drew the covers up about her. Jenny reached out a hand and smoothed Kathleen's hair.

"What will you do now?" Jenny said.

"Milady was very ill three years ago. She made arrangements then. She said I could go and do for her sister, a widow who lives alone by the sea."

"That was very thoughtful."

"She was very thoughtful," said Kathleen softly. "She was -- she -- " Kathleen bit her lip. She was going to say something else, it was clear, but the words took time to force out. "If we could have saved her, she would hate me now, wouldn't she?"

Almost certainly, thought Jenny. "That's possible," she said. "But you have said she was a good and kind woman, and you didn't know --"

"The last time I did. You told me, and I knew, and then I --" Kathleen bit her lip. "She would hate me," she said softly. "And she'd be right to." She shook her head. "I thought, if this is the last time to kiss her, what harm in one last time?" Her eyes met Jenny's. "Sometimes once is everything, isn't it?"

Jenny said, "I'm sorry."

"The folly was mine. The sin was mine. I should have listened."

"Yes," said Madame's coldest voice. "You should have."

Jenny turned in surprise. Madame and a nervous-looking Mrs. Wong stood just inside the bedroom's doorway. "Ma'am?" Jenny said. Madame ignored her. Her gaze was locked on Kathleen. "You knew, Kathleen," said Madame. "Didn't you?"

Kathleen's eyes were wide. "I --"

"The paper shop you selected had never been subject to Lady Carrington's custom," Madame said. Jenny had never heard her speak so harshly. "Its proprietor made that quite clear. Why would you go there? Why that shop, so distant from Lady Carrington's home? Shall I tell you? _Because it was opposite a Chinese laundry._ "

Kathleen's mouth opened. No sound came forth.

"You had been with Lord and Lady Carrington to Hong Kong," said Madame. "You knew what a jiang shi was. But not how to stop, or save one. Lady Carrington didn't go with you because she was watching you. You asked her to go with you, to where you thought she might be recognized. You took her dress to the laundry, that you might have your chance." The scorn in Madame's voice redoubled. "But all your knowledge, all your fears, everything you saw, and people died because still _you could not bring yourself to ask a Chinese for help._ "

Kathleen said nothing.

"Be grateful," Madame said. "Be grateful for Mrs. Wong. Be grateful she saw you were afraid. Be grateful she knew your mistress for something close to what she was. And be grateful she helped you anyway."

Madame turned on her heel and left the room. Mrs. Wong, hesitantly, followed her. "Thank you," whispered Kathleen. "Thank you…"

She buried her face in the pillows. Jenny sat numbly by her. She heard voices from downstairs, Mrs. Wong's and Madame's, then a command from Madame and an answer from Parker. He will bring the coach around, thought Jenny. We are going now. She knew what they had left to do. She smoothed the blankets that covered Kathleen. The girl had looked up, now, and was staring at Jenny with stricken eyes. "Will Madame Vastra forgive me?" she said.

"It's not about that," Jenny said. "She didn't tell you that so you could look for forgiveness. She told you because you needed to hear it." Kathleen's face was miserable and uncomprehending. Jenny pitied her, and felt contempt for her, and loved her for her human frailty, and all of it at once. "You rest now," she said. "We'll send the necessary wires in the morning. You'll be off to do for your lady's sister, beside the sea. You'll be taken care of. You're safe now."

"Nothing is safe," said Kathleen. "Doing what you should isn't safe, getting what you want isn't safe. Nothing is safe." Her gaze fixed on Jenny. "Madame Vastra," she said. "Is she -- "

"Like us?" said Jenny. "Yes."

"You love her."

"Yes."

"And she loves you?"

"I… would not presume to speak for her, but I think it is something very like it."

Kathleen nodded. She turned her face to the wall. Jenny rose and blew out the candle.

"Jenny?" said Kathleen in a small voice.

Jenny paused in the doorway. "Yes, Kathleen."

Kathleen turned toward her, and said, "You're _lucky._ " Her eyes were wide, and very sad.

"I know," said Jenny softly, and shut the door.

* * *

Parker waited on his box on the coach. He came off it so rarely, these days, that Jenny sometimes wondered if he still had feet. In one hand, he clutched his lead-lined stick. Jenny, unsheathing her own dagger, glanced from Parker to Madame and Mrs. Wong. Mrs. Wong was tense. Madame was… Madame. Confident. In control. Inhuman. Beautiful.

Jenny heard the movement in the ground before she saw it. It was a low scrabbling, nothing more. Then bloodied fingertips broke the earth from below. Mrs. Wong stepped back, as was only natural. Madame and Jenny stepped forward, as wasn't. Jenny hid her smile. _Wilmer would think me and Madame wasn't natural,_ Jenny thought. _I s'pose we're not. We run toward things sensible people run from._

The last revenant scratched its way free of its pauper's grave. It was a Chinese man, old and dissolute, clothed in an ill-fitting brown suit tattered just this side of rags. Its mouth opened, but like the other revenants the jiang shi had created, it did not speak.

"Mrs. Wong," said Madame, "may I prevail upon you to translate for me?"

Somewhat nervously, Mrs. Wong nodded and stepped forward.

"I don't know your name," Madame said. Mrs. Wong spoke softly in Chinese, even as Madame continued. "I don't know if you'd have understood me, even when you were alive; I don't know if you will understand Mrs. Wong now, if there is enough left of you. As for the creature in your skull -- I can only surmise that feeding on whatever thoughts are left a corpse has left it damaged and starving. It may well be revenant itself. I wish there were another way to give you peace." The revenant staggered forward and reached out for her. "I'm sorry," Madame said. She stepped back. "Jenny?"

Jenny threw her knife.

It bit deeply into the center of the revenant's forehead, but the skull was thicker by far than any Jenny had yet encountered, and the blade failed to penetrate enough. The wound was not without effect. The revenant began to twitch its arms slowly while stumbling about in a great circle.

"Sorry!" Jenny said.

"It's all right," said Madame. "Parker!"

When its steps brought it near to the carriage, Parker leaned forward and and drove the knife the rest of the way in with a blow from his lead-lined stick. The revenant stopped its slow twitch and fell down.

"Thank you, Parker," said Jenny. Parker nodded in reply, then lowered himself from the coach, grasped the handle of the knife, twisted it, and withdrew the blade. He went to wipe it on the dead man's sleeve, then caught Madame's look and wiped the blade on the grass instead before he took the corpse up and began to drag it back to the grave.

Madame turned to Mrs. Wong and offered her a hand. "And I thank you, Mrs. Wong," she said. "For our case, and for your troubles. You may contact us at any time should our services be needed, but I for one think there will be no more trouble with revenants or jiang shi."

"Madame Vastra," said Mrs. Wong. "What are you?"

"I'm many things," Madame said. "So are you, you know."

"I know."

"Good. Come, Jenny."

Madame turned and glided through the rising fog toward the carriage, on which Parker had already re-established himself. Jenny glanced after Madame, then stepped closer to Mrs. Wong. Furtively, she reached into her apron's pocket, pulled free the last Christmas present she'd been given by Madame, and handed it over. "Take this," Jenny said. "It's all the books you'll ever want. Careful with it, though." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Some of them ain't exactly been written yet."

Mrs. Wong caught her breath. She flipped the pages, and traced one with a finger, and watched as the letters flowed and changed. Her gaze, when it snapped back from the book to Jenny's face, was wide and amazed. "I asked your mistress," she said, "but you must tell me. What are you?"

"I can't tell you all I am," said Jenny honestly. "I wish I could. Mostly I'm Madame's, I guess. That's all."

Mrs. Wong blinked. She turned the book over in her hands, then clasped it to her chest. "Yes," said Mrs. Wong, her gaze fixing on Jenny as if seeing her for the first time. "Of course you are."

The terror of discovery flooded Jenny's mind in an instant. She was not ashamed, never ashamed, but the prospect of exposure, opprobrium, _no more cases_ \-- she was careful, so careful; how had Mrs. Wong been able to tell?

"One can find quite a lot of things in books," said Mrs. Wong. She traced the spine of her gift. "Especially if one reads Latin, and Greek, and English, and Chinese."

"Blimey," said Jenny faintly. She'd never thought Mrs. Wong was that learned. "You really could've been something, if --" she broke off there, because all the ifs were horrible things to say.

"If I were a man? Or white?" said Mrs. Wong. "Or if I were only born to wealth and power, like Lady Carrington? I might have become a great scholar." She smiled. "I think I might have been a very lazy woman who loves books." Jenny laughed. "I shall thank you in a manner you will appreciate," Mrs. Wong said, "if it is permitted?"

"Whuh?" said Jenny, and then she couldn't say anything for a short time. Mrs. Wong, the part of Jenny's brain that worked noted, was a much better kisser than Kathleen had been. Perhaps there were books about it. When the kiss ended, Jenny opened her eyes to find Mrs. Wong regarding her with a smile.

"Interesting," Mrs. Wong said calmly. "Though I think it is still not my preference. Thank you, Jenny, for your gift. And please thank your Mistress as well. I will notify you if ever I discover anything else of import. I shall walk from here. Good night."

Jenny said, "G'nuh."

Mrs. Wong turned away, and Jenny staggered numbly toward the carriage. It pulled up in front of her, and with Madame's aid she climbed inside and shut the door. At a gesture from Parker, the carriage began to move.

"Red-haired serving girls, beautiful foreigners -- I play the great detective and solve their problems, and _you_ get to kiss them," said Madame with good-natured petulance as Jenny sank into the seat opposite. "It's all quite unfair."

"Not tonight, ma'am," said Jenny. "Please."

Madame frowned with concern. "Are you quite all right, my dear?"

Outside, buildings rose about them. The carriage turned onto a larger street; the city noise, the gabble of a crowd, rose to Jenny's ears. She stared out the window at the people. "I could use my mum and a cup of tea. That's all."

The carriage slowed to pass through a knot of street-crossers. "I cannot bring your mother," said Madame softly, "but if you need a cup of tea, I shall make you one."

Jenny almost laughed at the thought. "You what?"

"I know how tea is made. I've watched you. You care for me so often. It's only fair someone should care for you. Tonight, I shall make your tea, and draw your bath, and, should you wish it -- " Madame's voice dropped to a husky register "-- I shall tender to your needs."

A flash of movement came from outside the carriage window, and someone screamed. "They're alive!" cried the voice. "The waxworks, they've come alive!"

Jenny turned to Madame, eyes wide.

Madame shrugged. "Or we could ride into an extremely dangerous situation, having no idea what we may face," she said.

Jenny beamed.

Reaching up, Jenny thumped the top of the coach twice. "Parker!" she called. "Straight into trouble, and don't spare the horses!" She fell, rather than sat, back into her seat as the horses thundered away, and grinned triumphantly to see Madame's surprised expression. "You said it, ma'am," said Jenny. "Tonight, I'm in charge."

"I may come to regret this Saturnalia," said Madame.

"Oh, might you?" Jenny said, and pounced.

The trip took longer than expected, with the crowds and then having to help Madame do up her bustle, so it was a good while before they got to fight the Autons. But Jenny found she didn't mind.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for "The Adventure of the Hopping Vampire"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1651742) by [Makoyi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makoyi/pseuds/Makoyi)




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